Views  AND  Reviews 


TEEATURE 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


VIEWS    AND    REVIEWS 


IN  UNIFORM  BINDING 


ANDREW  LANG 
Letters  to  Dead  Authors   -     -  ^i   oo 

AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL 

Obiter  Dicta— First  Series  - 
Obiter  Dicta— Second  Series  - 
Men,  Women  and  Books 
Res  Judicata     .     _     _     .     . 

W.  E.  HENLEY 

Views  and  Reviews— Literature 
Views  and  Reviews— Art  -  - 
Lyra  Heroica    -     -     -     -     - 

BARRETT  WENDELL 

Stelligeri  and  Other  Essays     -      *   2$ 


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25 

VIEWS 
AND    REVIEWS 

ESSAYS 
IN  APPRECIATION 

By  W.  E.  HENLEY 


LITERATURE 


I 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1906 


t,3 


TO  THE  MEN  OF 
'THE  SCOTS  OBSERVER" 


PREFATORY 

Suggested  by  one  friend  and  selected  and  com- 
piled by  another,  this  volume  is  less  a  book  than 
a  mosaic  of  scraps  and  shreds  recovered  from 
the  shot  rubbish  of  some  fourteen  years  of 
jowmalism.  Thus,  the  notes  on  Longfellow, 
Balzac,  Sidney,  Toumeur,  'Arabian  Nights 
'Entertainments,'  Borrow,  George  Eliot,  and  Mr. 
Frederick  Locker  are  extracted  from  originals 
in  'London' — a  print  still  remembered  with 
affection  by  those  concerned  in  it;  those  on 
Labiche,  Champfleury,  Richardson,  Fielding, 
Byron,  Gay,  Congreve,  Boswell,  '  Essays  and 
'  Essayists,'  Jefferies,  Hood,  Matthew  Arnold, 
Lever,  Thackeray,  Dickens,  M.  Theodore  de 
Banville,  Mr.  Austin  Dobson,  and  Mr.  George 
Meredith  from  articles  contributed  to  '  The 
'Athenaeum' ;  those  on  Dumas,  Count  Tolstoi's 
novels,  and  the  verse  of  Dr.  Hake  from  'The  Satur- 
' day  Review' ;  those  on  Walton,  Landor,  and 
Heine  from  '  The  Scots  Observer,'  '  The  Aca~ 
'  aemy,'  and  '  Vanity  Fair '  respectively  ;  while  the 
'  Disraeli '  has  been  pieced  together  from  '  Lon~ 
'don,'  'Vanity  Fair,'  and  'The  Athenceum' ; 
the   '  Berlioz '  from  '  The  Scots  Observer '  and 


viii  NOTE 

*  The  Saturday  Review ' ;  the  '  Tennyson '  from 
'  The   Scots  Observer '  and   '  The  Magazine  of 

*  Art ' ;  the  'Homer  and  Theocritus'  from  '  Vanity 
Fair '  and  the  defunct  '  Teacher ' ;  the  '  Hugo ' 
from  '  The  Athenceum,'  '  The  Magazine  of  Art,' 
and  an  unpublished  fragment  written  for  '  The 
'Scottish  Church.'  In  all  cases  permission  to 
reprint  is  hereby  gratefully  acknowledged;  but 
the  reprinted  matter  has  been  subjected  to  such 
a  process  of  revision  and  reconstitution  that  much 
of  it  is  practically  new,  while  little  or  none 
remains  as  it  was.  I  venture,  then,  to  hope  that 
the  result,  for  all  its  scrappiness,  will  be  found 
to  have  that  unity  which  comes  of  method  and 
an  honest  regard  for  letters. 

W.  E.  H. 

Bdin''.  Ztk  May  1890 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFATOEY vii 

DICKENS  ....  .  .  I 

A  '  Frightful  Minus  *  :  His  Method  :  His  De- 
velopment :  His  Results  :  Ave  atque  Vale. 

THACKERAY  .  ...  .  .  9 

His  Worshippers :  His  Critics  :  Which  is  Right  f 
His  Style  :  His  Mission, 

DISRAELI         ......        20 

His  Novels  :  A  Contrast  :  His  Backgrounds  : 
His  Men  and  Women  :  His  Stvle  :  His 
Oratory  :  His  Speeches  as  Literature  :  The 
Great  Earl. 

DUMAS  ......        33 

His  Components  :  Himself  :  At  Least  :  His 
Monument. 

MEREDITH      ......        43 

His  Qualities  :  His  Defects  :  Another  Way  : 
'Rhoda  Fleming'  :  The  Tragic  Comedians  : 
'  The  Egoist '  :  In  Metre  :  The  Fashion  of 
Art. 

BYRON 56 

Byron  and  the  World  :  Byron  and  Wordsworth. 
HUGO 63 

His  Critics  :  Some  Causes  and  Effects  :  Environ- 
ment  :  Equipment  and  Achievement  :  His 
Diary  :  For  and  Against  :  What  Lives  of 
Him. 


X  CONTENTS 

PAoa 
HEINE  ......       79 

Ttu  Villainy  of  Translation  :  The  Proof  oj  It. 


ARNOLD  

His   Verse  :  His  Failure  :  His  Triumphs  :  His 
Prose. 

HOMEE  AND  THEOCRITUS 

'  The  Odyssey '  :  Old  Lamps  and  New. 

RABELAIS 

His  Essence  :  His  Secret. 

SHAKESPEARE  .... 

A  Parallel. 

SIDNEY 

His  Expression  of  Life  :  His  Fame. 

TOURNEUR      ..... 

His  Style  :  His  Matter. 

WALTON 

'  The  Compleat  Angler'  :  Master  Piscator. 

HERRICK  ..... 

.  His  Muse  :  His  Moral :  His  Piety. 

LOCKER  .  .  .  . 

His  Qualities  :  His  Effect, 

BANVILLE 

His  Nature  :  His  Art. 

DOBSON  .  .  .  •  . 

Method  and  Effect. 

BERLIOZ  ..... 

The  Critic  :  A  Prototype  :  His  Theory  of  Auto 
biography. 

GEORGE  ELIOT  .... 

The  Ideal :  The  Peal :  Appreciations. 


83 
92 

97 

lOI 

104 
106 
108 
112 
116 
118 
121 
124 

130 


CONTENTS 


BORROW 

His  Vocation  :  /deals  and  Achievements  :  Him 
self. 

BALZAC 

Under  which  King  f    :     The  Fact. 

LABICHE 

Teniers  or  Daumier  f    :    Labiche, 

CHAMPFLEURY 

The  Man  :  The  Writer. 

LONGFELLOW 

Sea  Poets  :  Longfellow. 

TENNYSON 

^St.  Agnes'  Eve '  :  Indian  Summer  :  His  Master- 
ship. 

GORDON  HAKE  

Aim  and  Equipment. 

LANDOR  .  ..... 

Anti-Landor :  His  Drama. 

HOOD     ....... 

How  Much  of  Him  f  :  Death's  Jest  Book  :  His 
Immortal  Part. 

LEVER  

How  He  Lived :  What  He  Was :  How  He  wrote. 

JEFFERIES      ...... 

His   Virtue  :  His  Limitation  :  The  General : 
Last  Words. 


GAY 


The  Fabulist :  The  Moralist :  After  All. 


ESSAYS  AND  ESSAYISTS      .... 

The  GoodoJ  Them  :  Generalities  :  In  Particular. 


PAoa 
133 


139 
143 
148 

154 

159 
162 

16S 

171 

177 

183 

188 


xil  CONTENTS 

PAoa 
BOSWETX  .  .  .  .  .  '194 

His  Destiny  :  His  Critic  :  Himself. 

CONGREVE       ......      201 

His  Biographers  and  Critics  :  The  Real  Congreve  : 
The  Dramatist  :  The  Writer. 

*  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  ENTERTAINMENTS  *  .     2o8 

Its  Romance  :  Its  Comedy  :  Sacer  Vates. 

EICHARDSON  .  .  .  .  .2x5 

His  Fortune   :    '  Pamela '    :    '  Grandison '   .• 
•  Clarissa.' 

TOLSTOI 223 

The  Man  and  the  Artist  :   '  Ivan  Iliitch '  : 
'  War  and  Peace.' 

FIELDING        .  .  .  .  •  .     229 

Illusions  :  Facts  :  The  Worst  of  It. 


VIEWS    AND    REVIEWS 


DICKENS. 

Mr.  Andrew  Lang  is  delightfully  severe  on  those 
who  '  cannot  read  Dickens/  but  in  truth  it  is  only 

by  accident  that  he  is  not  himself  of       ,  „     ,  ^ 
/  .      ,  •         T7     T^-  1  ^  'Frightful 

that  unhappy  persuasion.   1*  or  Dickens        ,,.       , 

Minus 
the  humourist  he  has  a  most  uncompro- 
mising enthusiasm  ;  for  Dickens  the  artist  in  drama 
and  romance  he  has  as  little  sympathy  as  the  most 
practical.  Of  the  prose  of  David  Copperfield  and 
Our  Mutual  Friend,  the  Tale  of  Two  Cities  and  The 
Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood,  he  disdains  to  speak.  He 
is  almost  fierce  (for  him)  in  his  denunciation  of  Little 
Nell  and  Paul  Dombey  ;  he  protests  that  Monks 
and  Ralph  Nickleby  are  'too  steep,'  as  indeed 
they  are.  But  of  Bradley  Headstone  and  Sydney 
Carton  he  says  not  a  word ;  while  of  Martin 
Chuzzlewit — but  here  he  shall  speak  for  himself, 
the  italics  being  a  present  to  him.  '  I  have  read  in 
*  that  book  a  score  of  times,'  says  he ;  'I  never  see 

A 


2  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

'  it  but  1  revel  in  it — in  Pecksniff  and  Mrs.  Gamp 

*  and  the  Americans.  But  what  the  plot  is  all  about, 
'  what  Jonas  did,  what  Montague  Tigg  had  to  make 
'  in  the  matter,  what  all  the  pictures  with  plenty  of 
'  shading  illustrate,  I  have  never  been  able  to  com- 
'  prehend.'  This  is  almost  as  bad  as  the  reflection 
(in  a  magazine)    that    Jonas    Chuzzlewit    is    'the 

*  most  shadowy  murderer  in  fiction.'  Yet  it  is  im- 
possible to  be  angry.  In  his  own  way  and  within 
his  own  limits  Mr.  Lang  is  such  a  thoroughgoing 
admirer  of  Dickens  that  you  are  moved  to  com- 
passion when  you  think  of  the  much  he  loses  by 
'  being  constitutionally  incapable '  of  perfect  ap- 
prehension, '  How  poor,'  he  cries,  with  generous 
enthusiasm,  '  the  world  of  fancy  would  be,  "  how 

*  "dispeopled  of  her  dreams,"  if,  in  some  ruin  of 
'  the  social  system,  the  books  of  Dickens  were  lost ; 

*  and  if  The  Dodger,  and  Charley  Bates,  and  Mr. 

*  Crinkle  and  Miss  Squeers  and  Sam  Weller,  and 
'  Mrs.  Gamp,  and  Dick  Swiveller  were  to  perish, 
'  or  to  vanish  with  Menander's  men  and  women  ! 
'  We  cannot  think  of  our  world  without  them  ;  and, 
'  children  of  dreams  as  they  are,  they  seem  more 

*  essential  than  great  statesmen,  artists,  soldiers, 
'  who  have  actually  worn  flesh  and  blood,  ribbona 

*  and  orders,  gowns  and  uniforms.'  Nor  is  this  all. 
He  is  almost  prepared  to  welcome  '  free  education,' 
since  '  every  Englishman  who  can  read,  unless  he 
'  be  an  Ass,  is  a  reader  the  more '  for  Dickens. 
Does  it  not  give  one  pause  to  reflect  that  the  writer 


DICKENS  3 

of  this  charming  eulogy  can  only  read  the  half  of 
Dickens,  and  is  half  the  ideal  of  his  own  denuncia- 
tion. 


Dickens's  imagination  was  diligent  from  the  out- 
set ;  with  him  conception  was  not  less  deliberate  and 
careful   than   development;     and   so 
much  he  confesses  when  he  describes 
himself  as  *  in  the  first  stage  of  a  new 
'  book,  which  consists  in  going  round  and  round 

*  the  idea,  as  you  see  a  bird  in  his  cage  go  about 
'and  about  his  sugar  before  he  touches  it.'      'I 

*  have  no  means,'  he  writes  to  a  person  wanting 
advice,   '  of  knowing  whether  you  are  patient  in 

*  the  pursuit  of  this  art ;   but  I  am  inclined  to 

*  think  that  you  are   not,  and  that  you  do  not 

*  discipline  yourself  enough.      When   one  is  im 
'  pelled  to   write  this   or  that,   one   has   still  to 

*  consider :   "  How  much  of  this  will  tell  for  what 

*  '*  I  mean  ?    How  much  of  it  is  my  own  wild  emo- 

*  "  tion  and  superfluous  energy — how  much  remains 

*  "  that  is  truly  belonging  to  this  ideal  character 

*  "  and  these  ideal  circumstances .'' "    It  is  in  the 

*  laborious  struggle  to  make  this  distinction,  and 

*  in  the  determination  to  try  for  it,  that  the  road 
'  to  the  correction  of  faults  lies.     [Perhaps  I  may 

*  remark,  in  support  of  the  sincerity  with  which  I 

*  write  this,  that  I  am  an  impatient  and  impulsive 


4  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

'  person  myself,  but  that  it  has  been  for  many  yeara 
*  the  constant  etfoi-t  of  my  life  to  practise  at  my 
'  desk  what  I  preach  to  you.] '  Such  golden  words 
could  only  have  come  from  one  enamoured  of  his 
art,  and  holding  the  utmost  endeavour  in  its  be- 
half of  which  his  heart  and  mind  were  capable  for 
a  matter  of  simple  duty.  They  are  a  proof  that 
Dickens — in  intention  at  least,  and  if  in  intention 
then  surely,  the  fact  of  liis  genius  being  admitted, 
to  some  extent  in  fact  as  well — was  an  artist  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  term. 


In  the  beginning  he  often  wrote  exceeding  ill, 

especially  when   he   was  doing  his  best  to  write 

seriously.       He    developed    into    an 

^      ,  artist  in  words  as  he  developed  into 

DcVClOVTHSTlt 

an  artist  in  the  construction  and  the 
evolution  of  a  story.  But  his  development  was  his 
own  work,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  should  redound 
eternally  to  his  honour  that  he  began  in  news- 
paper English,  and  by  the  production  of  an  imi- 
tation of  the  novela  picaresca — a  string  of  adven- 
tures as  broken  and  disconnected  as  the  adventures 
of  Lazarillo  de  Tormes  or  Peregrine  Pickle,  and 
went  on  to  become  an  exemplar.  A  man  self-made 
and  self-taught,  if  he  knew  anything  at  all  about 
the  '  art  for  art '  theory — which  is  doubU"ul — he  may 


DICKENS  b 

well  have  held  it  cheap  enough.  But  he  practised 
Millet's  dogma — Daiis  I'art  il  faut  sa  peau—ss 
resolutely  as  Millet  himself,  and  that,  too,  under 
conditions  that  might  have  proved  utterly  demoral- 
ising liad  he  been  less  robust  and  less  sincere. 
He  began  as  a  serious  novelist  with  Ralph  Nickleby 
and  Lord  Frederick  Verisopht ;  he  went  on  to 
produce  such  masterpieces  as  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  and 
Doubledick,  and  Eugene  Wrayburn  and  the  im- 
mortal Mrs.  Gamp,  and  Fagin  and  Sikes  and  Sydney 
Carton,  and  many  another.  The  advance  is  one 
from  positive  weakness  to  positive  strength,  from 
ignorance  to  knowledge,  from  incapacity  to  mas- 
tery, from  the  manufacture  of  lay  figures  to  the 
creation  of  human  beings. 


9 


His  faults  were  many  and  grave.      He  wrote 

some  nonsense  ;  he  sinned  repeatedly  against  taste ; 

he  could  be  both  noisy  and  vulgar ; 

His 
he  was  apt  to  be  a  caricaturist  wliere 

Results 
he  should  have  been  a  painter ;   he 

was  often  mawkish  and  often  extravagant ;  and  he 

was  sometimes  more  inept  than  a  great  writer  has 

ever  been.     But  his  work,  whether  bad  or  good,  has 

in  full  measure  the  quality  of  sincerity.     He  meant 

what  he  did  ;    and  he   meant  it  with   his   whole 

Loart.     He  looked  upon  himself  as  representative 


6  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

and  national — as  indeed  he  was ;  he  regarded  his 
work  as  a  universal  possession ;  and  he  deter- 
mined to  do  nothing  that  for  lack  of  pains  should 
prove  unworthy  of  his  function.  If  he  sinned 
it  was  unadvisedly  and  unconsciously ;  if  he  failed 
it  was  because  he  knew  no  better.  You  feel  that 
as  you  read.  The  freshness  and  fun  of  Pickwick 
— a  comic  middle-class  epic,  so  to  speak — seem 
mainly  due  to  hiifh  spirits ;  and  perhaps  that 
immortal  book  should  be  described  as  a  first  im- 
provisation by  a  young  man  of  genius  not 
yet  sure  of  either  expression  or  ambition  and 
with  only  vague  and  momentary  ideas  about  the 
duties  and  necessities  of  art.  But  from  Pickwick 
onwards  to  Edwin  Drood  the  effort  after  im- 
provement is  manifest.  What  are  Dombey  and 
Dorrit  themselves  but  the  failures  of  a  great  and 
serious  artist .''  In  truth  the  man's  genius  did 
but  ripen  with  years  and  labour ;  he  spent  his 
life  in  developing  from  a  popular  writer  into  an 
artist.  He  extemporised  Pickwick,  it  may  be,  but 
into  Copperfield  and  Chuzzlevoit  and  the  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  and  Our  Mutual  Friend  he  put  his  whole 
might,  working  at  them  with  a  passion  of  determi- 
nation not  exceeded  by  Balzac  himself.  He  had 
enchanted  the  public  without  an  effort ;  he  was  tiie 
best-beloved  of  modern  writers  almost  from  the 
outset  of  his  career.  But  he  had  in  him  at  least  as 
much  of  the  French  artist  as  of  the  middle-class 
Englishman  ;  and  if  ail  his  life  he  never  ceased  from 


DICKENS  7 

eelf-education  but  went  unswervingly  in  pursuit  of 
culture,  it  was  out  of  love  for  his  art  and  because  his 
conscience  as  an  artist  would  not  let  him  do  other- 
wise. We  have  been  told  so  often  to  train  ourselves 
by  studying  the  practice  of  workmen  like  Gautier 
and  Hugo  and  imitating  the  virtues  of  work  like 
Ilernani  and  Qiiatre-Vingt-Treize  and  I'Education 
Sentiment  ale — we  have  heard  so  much  of  the  aesthe- 
tic impeccability  of  Young  France  and  the  section 
of  Young  England  that  affects  its  qualities  and 
reproduces  its  fashions — that  it  is  hard  to  refrain 
from  asking  if,  when  all  is  said,  we  should  not  do 
well  to  look  for  models  nearer  home  ?  if  in  place 
of  such  moulds  of  form  as  Mademoiselle  de  Maupin 
we  might  not  take  to  considering  stuff  like  Rizpah 
and  Our  Mutual  Friend  ? 


Yes,  he  had   many  and  grave  faults.      But  so 
had  Sir  Walter  and  the  good  Dumas ;  so,  to  be 
candid,   had    Shakespeare    himself — 
Shakespeare  the  king  of  poets.      To 
myself  he  is  always  the  man  of  his 
unrivalled   and    enchanting   letters — is  always  an 
incarnation  of  generous  and   abounding  gaiety,  a 
type  of  beneficent  earnestness,  a  great  expression 
of  intellectual   vigour  and  emotional  vivacity.     I 
love   to   remember    that  I    came    into   the    world 


8  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

contemporaneously  with  some  of  his  hravest  work, 
and  to  reflect  that  even  as  he  was  the  inspiration  of 
my  boyhood  so  is  he  a  delight  of  my  middle  age. 
I  love  to  think  that  while  English  literature  en- 
dures he  will  be  remembered  as  one  that  loved  his 
fellow-men,  and  did  more  to  make  them  happy  and 
amiable  than  any  other  writer  of  his  time. 


THACKERAY. 

It  is  odd  to  note  how  opinions  differ  as  to  the 

greatness    of   Thackeray  and    the    value    of   his 

books.    Some  regard  him  as  the  great- 

n  ■,  •  Sis 

est  novelist  of  his  age  and  country 

and  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  any 
country  and  any  age.  These  hold  him  to  be  not 
less  sound  a  moralist  than  excellent  as  a  writer, 
not  less  magnificently  creative  than  usefully  and 
delightfully  cynical^  not  less  powerful  and  com- 
plete a  painter  of  manners  than  infallible  as  a 
social  philosopher  and  incomparable  as  a  lecturer 
on  the  human  heart.  They  accept  Amelia  Sedley 
for  a  very  woman ;  they  believe  in  Colonel  New- 
come — '  by  Don  Quixote  out  of  Little  Nell ' — as  in 
something  venerable  and  heroic ;  they  regard 
William  Dobbin  and  'Stunning'  Warrington  as 
finished  and  subtle  portraitures  ;  they  think  Becky 
Sharp  an  improvement  upon  Mme.  Marneffe  and 
Wenham  better  work  than  Rigby ;  they  are  in 
love  with  Laura  Bell,  and  refuse  to  see  either 
cruelty  or  caricature  in  their  poet's  present- 
ment of  Alcide  de  IMirobolant.  Thackeray's  fun, 
Thackeray's   wisdom,    Thackeray's    knowledge   of 


10  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

men  and  women,  Thackeray's  morality,  Thack- 
eray's view  of  life,  '  his  wit  and  humour,  his 
'  pathos,  and  his  umbrella,'  are  all  articles  of 
belief  with  them.  Of  Dickens  they  will  not  hear  ; 
Balzac  they  incline  to  despise ;  if  they  make  any 
comparison  between  Thackeray  and  Fielding',  or 
Thackeray  and  Richardson,  or  Thackeray  and 
Sir  Walter,  or  Thackeray  and  Disraeli,  it  is 
to  the  disadvantage  of  Disraeli  and  Scott  and 
Richardson  and  Fielding.  All  these  were  well 
enough  in  their  way  and  day ;  but  they  are  not 
to  be  classed  with  Thackeray.  It  is  said,  no  doubt, 
that  Thackeray  could  neither  make  stories  nor 
tell  them  ;  but  he  liked  stories  for  all  that,  and 
by  the  hour  could  babble  charmingly  of  Ivunhoe 
and  the  Mousquetaires.  It  is  possible  that  he 
was  afraid  of  passion,  and  had  no  manner  of 
interest  in  crime.  But  then,  how  hard  he 
bore  upon  snobs,  and  how  vigorously  he  lashed 
the  smaller  vices  and  the  meaner  faults !  It  may 
be  beyond  dispute  that  he  was  seldom  good  at 
romance,  and  saw  most  things — art  and  nature 
included — rather  prosaically  and  ill-naturedly,  as 
he  might  see  them  who  has  been  for  many  years 
a  failure,  and  is  naturally  a  little  resentful  of 
other  men's  successes ;  but  then,  how  brilliant  are 
bis  studies  of  club  humanity  and  club  manners  ! 
how  thoroughly  he  understands  the  feelings  of 
them  that  go  down  into  the  west  in  broughams  ! 
If    he    writes    by    preference    for    people    with    a 


THACKERAY  11 

thousand  a  year,  is  it  not  the  duty  of  everybody 
with  a  particle  of  self-respect  to  have  that  income? 
Is  it  possible  that  any  one  who  has  it  not  can  have 
either  wit  or  sentiment^  humour  or  understanding  •' 
Thackeray  writes  of  gentlemen  for  gentlemen ; 
therefore  he  is  alone  among  artists ;  therefore  he 
is  '  the  greatest  novelist  of  his  age, '  That  is  the 
faith  of  the  true  believer :  that  the  state  of  mind 
of  him  that  reveres  less  wisely  than  thoroughly, 
and  would  rather  be  damned  with  Thackeray  thaq 
saved  with  any  one  else. 


The  position  of  them  that  wear  their  rue  with 
a  difference,  and  do  not  agree  that  all  literature 
is  contained  in  The  Book  of  Snobs  and 
Vanity  Fair,  is  more  easily  defended.    His  Critics 
They  like  and  admire  their  Thackeray 
in    many    ways,    but    they    think    him   rather  a 
writer  of  genius  who  was  innately  and  irredeem- 
ably a  Philistine  than  a  supreme  artist  or  a  great 
man.     To  them  there  is  something  artificial  in  the 
man  and  something  insincere  in  the  artist :  some- 
thing which  makes  it  seem  natural  that  his  best 
work  should  smack  of  the  literary  tour  de  force, 
and  that  he  should  never  have  appeared  to  such 
advantage  as  when,  in  Esmond  and  in  Barry  Lyndon, 
he  was  writing  up  to  a  standard  and  upon  a  model 


12  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

not  wholly  of  his  own  contrivance.  They  admit 
his  claim  to  eminence  as  an  adventurer  in  '  the 

*  discovery  of  the  Ugly' ;  but  they  contend  that  even 
there  he  did  his  work  more  shrewishly  and  more 
pettily  than  he  might ;  and  in  this  connection 
they  go  so  far  as  to  reflect  that  a  snob  is  not  only 

*  one  who  meanly  admires  mean  things/  as  his  own 
definition  declares,  but  one  who  meanly  detests 
mean  things  as  well.  They  agree  with  Walter  Ba- 
gehot  that  to  be  perpetually  haunted  by  the  plush 
behind  your  chair  is  hardly  a  sign  of  lofty  literary 
and  moral  genius ;  and  they  consider  him  narrow 
and  vulgar  in  his  view  of  humanity,  limited  in 
his  outlook  upon  life,  inclined  to  be  envious, 
inclined  to  be  tedious  and  pedantic,  prone  to 
repetitions,  and  apt  in  bidding  for  applause  to 
appeal  to  the  baser  qualities  of  his  readers  and  to 
catch  their  sympathy  by  making  them  feel  them- 
selves spitefully  superior  to  their  fellow-men. 
They  look  at  his  favourite  heroines — at  Laura  and 
Ethel  and  Amelia ;  and  they  can  but  think  him 
stupid  who  could  ever  have  believed  them  inter- 
esting or  admirable  or  attractive  or  true.  They 
listen  while  he  regrets  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
attempt  the  picture  of  a  man ;  and,  with  Barry 
Lyndon  in  their  mind's  eye  and  the  knowledge  that 
Casanova  and  Andrew  Bowes  suggested  no  more 
than  that,  they  wonder  if  the  impossibility  was  not 
a  piece  of  luck  for  him.  They  hear  him  heaping 
contumely  upon  the  murders  and  adulteries,  the 


THACKERAY  13 

excesses  in  emotion,  that  pleased  the  men  of  1830 
as  they  had  pleased  the  Elizabethans  before  them  ; 
and  they  see  him  turning  with  terror  and  loath- 
ing from  these — which  after  all  are  effects  of 
vigorous  passion — to  busy  himself  with  the  elabo- 
rate and  careful  narrative  of  how  Barnes  New- 
come  beat  his  wife,  and  iNIrs.  Mackenzie  scolded 
(volonel  Newcome  to  death,  and  old  Twysden 
bragged  and  cringed  himself  into  good  society 
and  an  interest  in  the  life  and  well-being  of  a 
little  cad  like  Captain  Woolcomb ;  and  it  is 
not  amazing  if  they  think  his  morality  more 
dubious  in  some  ways  than  the  morality  he  is  so 
firmly  fixed  to  ridicule  and  to  condemn.  They 
reflect  that  he  sees  in  Beatrix  no  more  than  the 
makings  of  a  Bernstein ;  and  they  are  puzzled, 
when  they  come  to  mark  the  contrast  between 
the  two  portraitures  and  the  difference  between 
the  part  assigned  to  Mrs.  Esmond  and  the  part 
assigned  to  the  Baroness,  to  decide  if  he  were  short- 
sighted or  ungenerous,  if  he  were  inapprehensive 
or  only  cruel.  They  weary  easily  of  his  dogged  and 
unremitting  pursuit  of  the  merely  conventional  man 
and  the  merely  conventional  woman  ;  they  cannot 
always  bring  themselves  to  be  interested  in  the  cup- 
board drama,  the  tea-cup  tragedies  and  cheque-book 
and  bandbox  comedies,  which  he  regards  as  the  stuff 
of  human  action  and  the  web  of  human  life ;  and 
from  their  theory  of  existence  they  positively  re- 
fuse to  eliminate  the  heroic  qualities  of  romance 


U  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

and  mystery  and  passion,  which  are — as  they  have 
only  to  open  their  newspapers  to  see — essentials 
of  human  achievement  and  integral  elements 
of  human  character.  They  hold  that  his  books 
contain  some  of  the  finest  stuiF  in  fiction  :  as, 
for  instance,  Rawdon  Crawley's  discovery  of  his 
wife  and  Lord  Steyne,  and  Henry  Esmond's  re- 
turn from  the  wars,  and  those  immortal  chapters 
in  which  the  Colonel  and  Frank  Castlewood  pursue 
and  run  down  their  kinswoman  and  the  Prince. 
But  they  hold,  too,  that  their  influence  is  dubious, 
and  that  few  have  risen  from  them  one  bit  the 
better  or  one  jot  the  happier. 


1 


Genius  apart,  Thackeray's  morality  is  that  of  a 
highly  respectable  British  cynic  ;  his  intelligence  is 

largely  one  of  trifles  ;  he  is  wise  over 
i'V  hich  ts 

trivial  and  trumpery  things.  He  de- 
lights in  reminding  us — with  an  air ! — 
that  everybody  is  a  humbug ;  that  we  are  all  rank 
snobs;  that  to  misuse  your  aspirates  is  to  be  ridicu- 
lous and  incapable  of  real  merit ;  that  Miss  Blank 
has  just  slipped  out  to  post  a  letter  to  Captain 
Jones  ;  that  Miss  Dash  wears  false  teeth  and  a  wig; 
that  General  Tufto  is  almost  as  tightly  laced  as 
the  beautiful  Miss  Hopper ;  that  there 's  a  bum- 
bailiif  in  the  kitchen  at  Number  Thirteen  ;  that  the 


THACKERAY  16 

dinner  we  ate  t'  other  day  at  Timmins's  is  still  to 
pay  ;  that  all  is  vanity  ;  that  there 's  a  skeleton  in 
every  house ;  that  passion,  enthusiasm,  excess  of  any 
sort,  is  unwise,  abominable,  a  little  absurd ;  and  so 
forth.  And  side  by  side  with  these  assurances  are 
admirable  sketches  of  character  and  still  more  ad- 
mirable sketches  of  habit  and  of  manners — are  the 
Pontos  and  Costigan,  Gandish  and  Talbot  Twysden 
and  the  unsurpassable  Major,  Sir  Pitt  and  Brand 
Firmin,  the  heroic  De  la  Pluche  and  the  engaging 
Farintosh  and  the  versatile  Honeyman,  a  crowd  of 
vivid  and  diverting  portraitures  besides ;  but  they  are 
not  different — in  kind  at  lejist — from  the  reflections 
suggested  by  the  story  of  their  several  careers  and 
the  development  of  their  several  individualities. 
Esmond  apart,  there  is  scarce  a  man  or  a  woman 
in  Thackeray  whom  it  is  possible  to  love  unre- 
servedly or  thoroughly  respect.  That  gives  the 
measure  of  the  man,  and  determines  the  quality 
of  his  influence.  He  was  the  average  clubman  plus 
genius  and  a  style.  And,  if  there  is  any  truth  in 
the  theory  that  it  is  the  function  of  art  not  to 
degrade  but  to  ennoble — not  to  dishearten  but  to 
encourage — not  to  deal  with  things  ugly  and  paltry 
and  mean  but  with  great  things  and  beautiful  and 
lofty — then,  it  is  argued,  his  example  is  one  to 
depreciate  and  to  condemn. 


% 


IC  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Tims  the  two  sects :  the  sect  of  them  that  are 

with   Thackeray  and   the   sect  of  them  that  are 

against  him.     Where  both  agree  is  in 

His  Style  the  fact  of  Thackeray's  pre-eminence 
as  a  writer  of  English  and  the  master 
of  one  of  the  finest  prose  styles  in  literature.  His 
manner  is  the  perfection  of  conversational  writing. 
Graceful  yet  vigorous ;  adorably  artificial  yet 
incomparably  sound ;  touched  with  modishness 
yet  ijiformed  with  distinction ;  easily  and  happily 
rhythmical  yet  full  of  colour  and  quick  with  malice 
and  with  meaning ;  instinct  with  urbanity  and  in- 
stinct with  charm — it  is  a  type  of  high-bred  English, 
a  climax  of  literary  art.  He  may  not  have  been 
a  great  man  but  assuredly  he  was  a  great  writer ; 
he  may  have  been  a  faulty  novelist  but  assuredly 
he  was  a  rare  artist  in  words.  Setting  aside  Cardi- 
nal Newman's,  the  style  he  wrote  is  certainly  less 
open  to  criticism  than  that  of  any  other  modern 
Englishman.  He  was  neither  super-eloquent  like 
Mr.  Ruskin  nor  a  Germanised  Jeremy  like  Carlyle; 
he  was  not  marmoreally  emphatic  as  Landor  was, 
nor  was  he  slovenly  and  inexpressive  as  was  the 
great  Sir  Walter;  he  neither  dallied  with  antithesis 
like  Macaulay  nor  rioted  in  verbal  vulgarisms 
with  Dickens ;  he  abstained  from  technology  and 
what  may  be  called  Lord  Burleighism  as  carefully 
as  George  Eliot  indulged  in  them,  and  he  avoided 
conceits  as  sedulously  as  Mr.  George  Meredith 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  hunt  for  them.    He  is  a  better 


THACKERAY  17 

writer  than  any  one  of  these,  in  that  he  is  always 
a  master  of  speech  and  of  himself,  and  that  he  is 
always  careful  yet  natural  and  choice  yet  seem- 
ingly spontiineous.  He  wrote  as  a  very  prince  among 
talkers,  and  he  interfused  and  interpenetrated  Eng- 
lish with  the  elegant  and  cultured  fashion  of  the 
men  of  Queen  Anne  and  with  something  of  the 
warmth,  the  glow,  the  personal  and  romantic  am- 
bition, peculiar  to  the  century  of  Byron  and  Keats, 
of  Land  or  and  Dickens,  of  Ruskin  and  Tennyson 
and  Carlyle.  Unlike  his  only  rival,  he  had  learnt 
his  art  before  he  began  to  practise  it.  Of  the  early 
work  of  the  greater  artist  a  good  half  is  that  of  a  man 
in  the  throes  of  education  :  the  ideas,  the  thoughts, 
the  passion,  the  poetry,  the  humour,  are  of  the 
best,  but  the  expression  is  self-conscious,  strained, 
ignorant.  Thackeray  had  no  such  blemish.  He 
wrote  dispassionately,  and  he  was  a  born  writer. 
In  him  there  is  no  hesitation,  no  fumbling,  no 
uncertainty.  The  style  of  Barry  Lyndon  is  better 
and  stronger  and  more  virile  than  the  style  of 
Philip ;  and  unlike  the  other  man's,  whose  latest 
writing  is  his  best,  their  author's  evolution  was 
towards  decay. 


He  is  so  superior  a  person  that  to  catch  him 
tripping  is  a  peculiar  pleasure.     It  is  a  satisfaction 


18  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

apart,  for  instance,  to  reflect  that  he  has  (it  must 
be  owned)  a  certain  gentility  of  mind.  Like  the 
M.P.  in  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  he  re- 
presents  the  Gentlemanly  Interest. 
That  is  his  mission  in  literature,  and 
he  fulfils  it  thoroughly.  He  appears  sometimes 
as  Mr.  Yellowplush,  sometimes  as  Mr.  Fitzboodle, 
sometimes  as  Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh,  but  al- 
ways in  the  Gentlemanly  Interest.  In  his  youth 
(as  ever)  he  is  found  applauding  the  well-bred 
Charles  de  Bernard,  and  remarking  of  Balzac  and 
Dumas  that  the  one  is  '  not  fit  for  the  salon,  and 
the  other  'about  as  genteel  as  a  courier.'  Balzac 
and  Dumas  are  only  men  of  genius  and  great 
artists  :  the  real  thing  is  to  be  '  genteel '  and  write 
— as  Gerfeuil  {sic)  is  written — '  in  a  gentleman-like 
'  style.'  A  ievf  pages  further  on  in  the  same  pro- 
nouncement (a  review  of  Jerome  Paturoi),  I  find  him 
quoting  with  entire  approval  Reybaud's  sketch  of  '  a 

*  great  character,  in  whom  the  habitue  of  Paris  will 

*  perhaps  recognise  a  ceilain  likeness  to  a  certain 
'  celebrity  of  the  present  day,  by  name  Monsieur 
'  Hector  Berlioz,  the  musician  and  critic'  The 
description  is  too  long  to  quote.  It  sparkles  with 
all  thefadaises  of  anti-Berliozian  criticism,  and  the 
point  is  that  the  hero,  after  conducting  at  a  private 
party  (which  Berlioz  never  did)  his  own  '  hymn  of 
'  the  creation  that  has  been  lost  since  the  days  of  the 
'  deluge,'  '  called  for  his  cloak  and  his  clogs,  and 

*  walked  home^  where  he  wrote  a  critique  for  the 


THACKERAY  19 

'  newspapers  of  the  music  which  he  had  composed 
'and  directed.'  In  the  Gentlemanly  Interest  Mr, 
Titniarsh  translates  this  sorry  little  libel  with  the 
utmost  innocence  of  approval.  It  is  The  Paris 
Sketch-Book  over  again.  That  Monsieur  Hector 
Berlioz  may  possibly  have  known  something  of 
his  trade  and  been  withal  as  honest  a  man  and 
artist  as  himself  seems  never  to  have  occurred 
to  him.  He  knows  nothing  of  Monsieur  Hector 
except  that  he  is  a  '  hairy  romantic,'  and  that 
whatever  he  wrote  it  was  not  Batti,  batti ;  but 
that  nothing  is  enough.  '  Whether  this  little  picture 
'  is  a  likeness  or  not,'  he  is  ingenuous  enough  to 
addj  'who  shall  say.-*'  But, — and  here  speaks  the 
bold  but  superior  Briton — '  it  is  a  good  caricature 

*  of  a  race  in  France,  where  geniuses  poussent  as 

*  they  do  nowhere  else  ;  where  poets  are  prophets, 

*  where  romances  have  revelations.'  As  he  goes 
on  to  qualifiy  Jerome  Paturot  as  a  'masterpiece,' 
and  as  '  three  volumes  of  satire  in  which  there  is 

*  not  a  particle  of  bad  blood,'  it  seems  fair  to  con- 
clude that  in  the  Gentlemanly  Interest  all  is  con- 
sidered fair,  and  that  to  accuse  a  man  of  writing 
criticisms  on   his  own  works  is  to  be  'witty  and 

*  entertaining,' and  likewise  'careless,  familiar,  and 

*  sparkling'  to  the  genteelest  purpose  possible  ia 
this  genteelest  of  all  possible  worlds. 


DISRAELI. 

To  the  general  his  novels  must  always  he  a  kind 
af  caviare ;  for  they  have  no  analogue  in  letters, 

but  are  the  output  of  a  mind  and 
His  Novels    temper   of  singular  originality.     To 

the  honest  Tory,  sworn  to  admire  and 
unable  to  comprehend,  they  must  seem  inexplic- 
able as  abnormal.  To  tlie  professional  Radical 
they  are  so  many  proofs  of  innate  inferiority  :  for 
they  are  full  of  pretentiousness  and  affectation ; 
they  teem  with  examples  of  all  manner  of  vices, 
from  false  English  to  an  immoral  delight  in  dukes  ; 
they  prove  their  maker  a  trickster  and  a  charla- 
tan in  every  page.  To  them,  however,  whose  first 
care  is  for  i-are  work,  the  series  of  novels  that 
began  with  Vivian  Grey  and  ended  with  En^ 
dymion  is  one  of  the  pleasant  facts  in  modern 
letters.  These  books  abound  in  wit  and  daring,  in 
originality  and  shrewdness,  in  knowledge  of  the 
world  and  in  knowledge  of  men  ;  they  contain 
many  vivid  and  striking  studies  of  character,  both 
portrait  and  caricature  ;  they  sparkle  with  speaking 
phrases  and  happy  epithets ;  they  are  aglow  with 
the  passion  of  youth,  the  love  of  love,  the  worship 
►f  l)hysical  beauty,  the  admiration  of  whatever  is 


DISRAELI  21 

costly  and  select  and  splendid — from  a  countess  to 
a  cjistle,  from  a  duke  to  a  diamond ;  they  are 
radiant  with  delight  in  whatever  is  powei'ful  or 
personal  or  attractive — from  a  cook  to  a  cardinal, 
from  au  agitator  to  an  emperor.  They  often 
remind  you  of  Voltaire,  often  of  Balzac,  often  of 
The  Arabian  Nights.  You  pass  from  an  heroic 
drinking  bout  to  a  brilliant  criticism  of  style ; 
from  rhapsodies  on  bands  and  ortolans  that  re- 
mind you  of  Heine  to  a  gambling  scene  that  for 
directness  and  intensity  may  vie  with  the  bluntest 
and  strongest  work  of  Prosper  Merimee  ;  from  the 
extravagant  impudence  of  Popanilla  to  the  senti- 
mental rodomontade  of  Henrietta  Temple ;  from 
ranting  romanticism  in  Alroy  to  vivid  realism  in 
Sybil.  Their  author  gives  you  no  time  to  weary 
of  him,  for  he  is  worldly  and  passionate,  fantas- 
tic and  trenchant,  cynical  and  ambitious,  flippant 
and  sentimental,  ornately  rhetorical  and  trium- 
phantly simple  in  a  breath.  He  is  imperiously 
egoistic,  but  while  constantly  parading  his  own 
personality  he  is  careful  never  to  tell  you  any- 
thing about  it.  And  withal  he  is  imperturbably 
good-tempered  :  he  brands  and  gibbets  with  a 
smile,  and  with  a  smile  he  adores  and  applauds. 
Intellectually  he  is  in  sympathy  with  character 
of  every  sort ;  he  writes  as  becomes  an  artist 
who    has    recognised  that  'the  conduct  of  men 

*  depends    upon    the    temperament,   not  upon    a 

*  bunch  of  musty  maxims,'  and   that  'there  is   a 


22  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

'great  deal  of  vice  that  is  really  sheer  inadver- 
'  tence.'  It  is  said  that  the  Monmouth  of  ConiiKjsby 
and  the  Steyne  of  Vanity  Fair  are  painted  from 
one  and  the  same  original ;  and  you  have  hut  to 
compare  the  savage  realism  of  Thackeray's  study 
to  the  scornful  amenity  of  the  other's — as  you 
have  but  to  contrast  the  elaborate  and  extra\'agant 
cruelty  of  Thackeray's  Alcide  de  Mirobolant  with 
the  polite  and  half-respectful  irony  of  Disraeli's 
treatment  of  the  cooks  in  Tancred  —  to  perceive 
that  in  certain  ways  the  advantage  is  not  ^^  ith  '  the 
'greatest  novelist  of  his  time,'  and  that  the  Mon- 
mouth produces  an  impression  which  is  more  moral 
because  more  kindly  and  humane  than  tlie  impres- 
sion left  by  the  Steyne,  while  in  its  way  it  is  every 
whit  as  vivid  and  as  convincing.  Yet  another  ex- 
cellence, and  a  gi-eat  one,  is  his  mastery  of  apt  and 
forcible  dialogue.  The  talk  of  Mr.  Henry  James's 
personages  is  charmingly  ecjuable  and  appropriate, 
but  it  is  also  trivial  and  tame;  the  talk  in  Anthony 
Trollope  is  surprisingly  natural  and  abundant,  but 
it  is  also  commonplace  and  inimemorable  ;  the  talk 
of  Mr.  George  Meredith  is  always  eloquent  and 
fanciful,  but  the  eloquence  is  too  often  dark  and 
tlie  fancy  too  commonly  inhuman.  What  Disraeli's 
])e()])le  have  to  say  is  not  always  original  nor  pro- 
f(uind,  but  it  is  crisply  and  haj)pily  plirased  and 
uttered,  it  reads  well,  its  impression  seldom  fails 
of  ])crmanency.  His  Wit  and  Wisdom  is  a  kind  of 
Talker  a  Guide  or  Handbook  of  Conversation.     How 


DISRAELI  23 

should  it  be  otherwise,  seeing  that  it  contains  the 
characteristic  utterances  of  a  great  artist  in  life 
renowned  for  memorable  speech  ? 


Now,  it  you  ask  a  worshipper  of  him  that  was 
80  long  his  rival,  to  repeat  a  saying,  a  maxim,  a 
sentence,  of  which  his  idol  is  the 
author,  it  is  odds  but  he  will  look  A  Contrast 
like  a  fool,  and  visit  you  with  an 
evasive  answer.  What  else  should  he  do  ?  His 
deity  is  a  man  of  many  words  and  no  sayings. 
He  is  the  prince  of  agitators,  but  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  liim  to  mint  a  definition  of  'agitation  '  ; 
he  is  the  world's  most  eloquent  arithmetician,  but 
it  is  beyond  him  to  epigi*ammatise  the  fact  tluit 
two  and  two  make  four.  And  it  seems  certain, 
unless  the  study  of  Homer  and  religious  fiction 
inspire  him  to  some  purpose,  that  his  contri- 
butions to  axiomatic  literature  will  be  still  re- 
stricted to  the  remark  that  'There  are  three 
courses  open '  to  something  or  other  :  to  the  House, 
to  the  angry  cabman,  to  what  and  whomsoever  you 
will.  In  sober  truth,  he  is  one  who  writes  for 
to-day,  and  takes  no  thought  of  either  yester- 
days or  morrows.  For  him  the  Future  is  next 
session  ;  the  Past  does  not  extend  beyond  liis  las.t 
change  of  niiud.      He  is  a  prince  of  jourualiats, 


24  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

and  his  excursions  into  monthly  literature  remain 
to  show  how  great  and  copious  a  master  of  the 
'  leader ' — ornatej  imposing,  absolutely  insignificant 
• — his  absorption  in  politics  has  cost  the  English- 
speaking  world. 


Disraeli's  imagination,  at  once  practical  and  ex- 
travagant, is  not  of  the  kind  that  deliglits  in  plot 

and  counterplot.  His  novels  abound 
His  Back-    .  .         ,  i  .     , 

in  action,  but  the  episodes  wear  a 
grounds  .  ,        i     ,       ,     . 

more  or  less  random  look :  the  impres- 
sion produced  is  pretty  much  that  of  a  story  of  ad- 
venture. But  if  they  fail  as  stories  they  are  unex- 
ceptionable as  canvases.  Our  author  unrolls  them 
with  superb  audacity ;  and  rapidly  and  vigorously 
he  fills  them  in  with  places  and  people,  with  faces 
that  are  as  life  and  words  expressive  even  as  they. 
Nothing  is  too  lofty  or  too  low  for  him.  He  hawlo 
at  every  sort  of  game,  and  rarely  does  he  make 
a  false  cast.  It  is  but  a  step  from  the  wilds  of 
Lancashire  to  the  Arabian  Desert,  from  the  cook's 
first  floor  to  the  Home  of  the  Bellamonts  ;  for  he 
has  the  Seven-Leaguc-Boots  of  the  legend,  and 
more  than  the  genius  of  adventure  of  him  tliat 
wore  them.  His  castles  may  be  of  cardboard, 
his  cataracts  of  tinfoil,  the  sun  of  his  adjurationii 
the  veriest  figment ;  but  he  never  lets  his  readera 


DISllAEU  26 

*ee  that  he  knows  it.  His  irony,  sudden  and  reck- 
less and  insidious  though  it  be,  yet  never  extends  to 
his  properties.  There  may  be  a  sneer  beneath  that 
mask  which,  with  an  egotism  baffling  as  imperturb- 
able, he  delights  in  intruding  among  his  creations  ; 
but  you  cannot  see  it.  You  suspect  its  presence, 
because  he  is  a  born  mocker.  But  you  remember 
that  one  of  his  most  obvious  idiosyncrasies  is  an 
inordinate  love  of  all  that  is  sumptuous,  glittering, 
radiant,  magnificent ;  and  you  incline  to  suspect 
that  he  keeps  his  sneering  for  the  world  of  men,  and 
admires  his  scenes  and  decorations  too  cordially  to 
visit  them  with  anything  so  merciless. 


But  dashing  and  brilliant  as  are  his  sketches  of 

places  and  things,  they  are  after  all  the  merest 

accessories.        It    was    as  a    student 

of  Men  and  Women  that  he  loved 

.  ,         J    .^   .  .,    .         .  andiVomen 

to  excel,   and   it  is  as  their  painter 

that  I  praise  him  now.  Himself  a  worshipper 
of  intellect,  it  was  intellectually  that  he  mastered 
and  developed  them.  Like  Sidonia  he  moves 
among  them  not  to  feel  with  them  but  to  under- 
stand and  learn  from  them.  Such  sympathy  as 
he  had  was  either  purely  sensuous,  as  for  youth  and 
beauty  and  all  kinds  of  comeliness  ;  or  purely  intel- 
lectual, as  for  intelligence,  artificiality,  servility. 


2G  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

meanness.  And  as  his  essence  was  satirical,  as  he  M'as 
naturally  irreverent  and  contemptuous,  it  follows 
that  he  is  best  and  strongest  in  the  act  of  punishment 
not  of  reward.  His  passion  for  youth  was  beauti- 
ful, but  it  did  not  make  him  strong.  His  scorn  f(>r 
things  contemptible,  his  hate  for  things  hateful, 
are  at  times  too  bitter  even  for  those  who  think  with 
him ;  but  in  these  lay  his  force — they  filled  his 
brain  with  light,  and  they  touched  his  lips  with 
fire.  The  wretched  Rigby  is  far  more  vigorous 
and  life-like  than  the  amiable  Coningsby ;  Tom 
Cogit — a  sketch,  but  a  sketch  of  genius — is  in- 
finitely more  interesting  than  May  Dacre  or  even 
the  Young  Duke ;  Tancred  is  a  good  fellow, 
and  very  real  and  true  in  his  goodness,  but  con- 
trast him  with  Fakredeen  !  And  after  his  knaves, 
his  fools,  his  tricksters,  the  most  striking  figures 
in  his  gallery  are  those  whom  he  has  considered 
from  a  purely  intellectual  point  of  view  :  either 
kindly,  as  Sidonia,  or  coolly,  as  Lord  Monmouth, 
hut  always  calmly  and  with  no  point  of  passion  in 
his  regard  :  the  Eskdales,  Villebecques,  Ormsbys, 
Besses,  Marneys,  Meltons,  and  Mirabels,  the  Bo- 
huns  and  St.  Aldegondes  and  Grandisons,  the 
Tadpoles  and  the  Tapers,  tlie  dominant  and  sub- 
altern humanity  of  the  world.  All  these  are  drawn 
with  peculiar  boldness  of  line,  precision  of  touch, 
and  clearness  of  intention.  And  as  with  his 
men  so  is  it  with  his  women :  the  finest  are  not 
those  he  likes  best  but  those  who  interested  him 


DISRAELI  27 

most.  Male  and  female,  his  eccentrics  surpass  his 
commonplaces.  He  had  a  great  regard  for  girls, 
and  his  attitude  towards  them,  or  such  of  tliem  as 
he  elected  heroines,  was  mostly  one  of  adoration — 
magnificent  yet  a  little  awkward  and  strained. 
With  women,  married  women,  he  had  vastly  more 
in  common  :  he  could  admire,  study,  divine,  without 
having  to  feign  a  warmer  feeling ;  and  while  his 
girls  are  poor  albeit  splendid  young  persons,  his 
matrons  are  usually  delightful.  Edith  Millbank 
is  not  a  very  striking  figure  in  C'o7ii7i(/.shi/  ;  but 
her  appearance  in  Tancred — well,  you  have  only  to 
compai'e  it  to  the  resurrection  of  Laura  Bell,  aa 
Mrs.  Pendennis  to  see  how  good  it  is. 


Now  and  then  the  writing  is  bad,  and  the  thought 

is  stale.    Disraeli  had  many  mannerisms,  innate  and 

acquired.     His  English  was  frequently 

.         ,  Ills 

loose  and  inexpressive  ;  he  was  apt  to 

trip  in  his  grammar,  to  stumble  over 
'  and  which,'  and  to  be  careless  about  the  con- 
nection between  his  nominatives  and  his  verbs. 
Again,  he  could  scarce  ever  refrain  from  tlie 
ose  of  gorgeous  commonplaces  of  sentiment  and 
diction.  His  taste  was  sometimes  ornately  and 
barbarically  conventional ;  he  wrote  as  an  orator, 
and  his  phrases  often  read  as  if  he  had  used  them 


28  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

for  the  sake  of  their  associations  rather  than  them 
selves.  His  works  are  a  casket  of  such  staji^e  jewels 
of  expression  as  '  Palladian  structure,'  '  Tusculan 
'repose,'  '^ Gothic  pile,'  '^pellucid  brow,'  '^mossycell,* 
and  'dew-bespangled  meads.*  He  delighted  in 
'hyacinthine  curls 'and  *  lustrous  locks,' in  'smiling 
'parterres'  and  'stately  terraces.'  He  seldom  sat 
down  in  print  to  anything  less  than  a  '  banquet ' ; 
he  was  capable  of  invoking  'the  iris  pencil  of 
'  Hope ' ;  he  could  not  think  nor  speak  of  the 
beauties  of  woman  except  as  '  charms.'  Which 
seems  to  show  that  to  be  '  born  in  a  library,* 
and  have  Voltaire — that  impeccable  master  of  the 
phrase — for  your  chief  of  early  heroes  and  exem- 
plars is  not  everything. 


It  is  admitted,  I  believe,  that  he  had  many  of  the 
qualities  of  a  great  public  speaker :   that  he  had 

an  admirable  voice  and  an  excellent 
His 
^     ,  method:  thathissequenceswere logical 

Oratory  ,  ,    ,  .  . 

and  natural,  his  arguments  vigorous 

and  persuasive  ;  that  he  was  an  artist  in  style,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  single  speech  could  be  eloquent 
and  vivacious,  ornate  and  familiar,  passionate  and 
cynical,  deliberately  rhetorical  and  magnificently 
fantastic  in  turn ;  that  he  was  a  master  of  all 
oratorical  modes — of  irony  and  argument,  of  stateiif 


DISRAELI  29 

declamation  and  brilliant  and  unexpected  anti* 
thesis^  of  caricature  and  statement  and  rejoinder 
alike ;  that  he  could  explain,  denounce,  retort, 
retract,  advance,  defy,  dispute,  with  equal  readi- 
ness and  equal  skill ;  that  he  was  unrivalled  in 
attack  and  unsurpassed  in  defence ;  and  that  in 
heated  debate  and  on  occasions  when  he  felt  him- 
self justified  in  putting  forth  all  his  powers  and 
in  striking  in  with  the  full  weight  of  his  imperious 
and  unique  personality  he  was  the  most  dangerous 
antagonist  of  his  time.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  his 
mysterious  and  commanding  influence  over  his 
followers — in  spite,  too,  of  the  fact  that  he  died 
assuredly  the  most  romantic  and  perhaps  the  most 
popular  figure  of  his  time — it  is  admitted  withal 
that  he  was  lacking  in  a  certain  quality  of  tem- 
perament, that  attribute  great  orators  possess  in 
common  with  great  actors :  the  power,  that  is, 
of  imposing  oneself  upon  an  audience  not  by 
argument  nor  by  eloquence,  not  by  the  perfect 
utterance  of  beautiful  and  commanding  speech 
nor  by  the  enunciation  of  eternal  principles  or 
.sympathetic  and  stirring  appeals,  but  by  an 
effect  of  personal  magnetism,  by  the  expres- 
sion through  voice  and  gesture  and  presence  of 
an  individuality,  a  temperament,  call  it  what 
you  will,  that  may  be  and  is  often  utterly  com- 
monplace but  is  always  inevitably  irresistible. 
He  could  slaughter  an  opponent,  or  butcher  a 
measure    or  crumule  up  a  theory  with  unrivalled 


30  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

adroitness  and  despatch ;  but  he  could  not  dominate 
a  crowd  to  the  extent  of  persuading  it  to  feel  with 
his  heart,  think  with  his  brain,  and  accept  liis 
utterances  as  the  expression  not  only  of  their 
common  reason  but  of  their  collective  sentiment 
as  well.  He  was  as  incapable  of  such  a  feat  as 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Midlothian  campaign  as  Mr.  Glad- 
stone is  of  producing  the  gaming  scene  in  The  Young 
Duke  or  the  '  exhausted  volcanoes '  paragraph  iu 
the  Manchester  speech. 


As  a  rule — a  rule    to  which    there  are    some 
magnificent  exceptions — orators  have  only  to  cease 
from  speaking  to  become  uninterest- 
ing.    What  has  been  heard  with  en- 
thusiasm   is    read    with    indifference 

or  even  with  astonishment.     You  miss 
Literature     ,         , ,        .        , 

the  noble  voice,  the  persuasive  gesture, 

the  irresistible  personality  ;  and  with  the  emotional 

faculty  at  rest  and  the  reason  at  work  you  are 

surprised — and  it  may  be  a  little  indignant — that 

you  should  have  been  impressed  so  deeply  as  you 

were  by  such  cold,  bald  verbosity  as  seen  in  black 

and  white  the  masterpiece  of  yesterday  appears  to 

be.     To  some  extent  this  is  the  case  with  these 

speeches  of  Disraeli's.    At  the  height  of  debate,  amid 

tlie  clash  of  personal  and  party  animosities,  with 


DISRAELI  31 

the  cheers  of  the  orator's  supporters  to  give  them 
wings,  they  sounded  greater  than  they  were.  But 
for  all  that  they  are  vigorous  and  profitable  yet. 
Their  author's  unfailing  capacity  for  saying  things 
worth  heeding  and  remembering  is  proved  in  every 
one  of  them.  It  is  not  easy  to  open  either  of  Mr. 
Kebbel's  volumes  without  lighting  upon  something 
— a  string  of  epigrams,  a  polished  gibe,  a  burst 
of  rhetoric,  an  effective  collocation  of  words — 
that  proclaims  the  artist.  In  this  connection  the 
perorations  are  especially  instructive,  even  if  you 
consider  them  simply  as  arrangements  of  sonorous 
and  suggestive  words  :  as  oratorical  impressions 
carefully  prepared,  as  effects  of  what  may  be  called 
vocalised  orchestration  touched  off  as  skilfully  and 
with  as  fine  a  sense  of  sound  and  of  the  senti- 
ment to  correspond  as  so  many  passages  of  instru- 
mentation signed  '  Berlioz  '  might  be. 


Fruits  fail,  and  love  dies,  and  time  ranges  ;  and 
only  the  whippersnapper  (that  fool  of  Time)  endur- 

eth  for  ever.     Moliere  knew  him  well, 

•  J  ii    i  AT  1-  1-         J     The  Great 

and  he  said  that  Mohere  was  a  liar  and  ,,     , 

Earl 
a  thief     And  Disraeli  knew  him  too, 

and  he  said  that  in  these  respects  Disraeli  and 

IMoliere  were  brothers.     That  he  said  so  matters  as 


32  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

little  now  as  ever  it  did  ;  for  thoxij^h  the  whippeP' 
snapper  is  immortal  in  kind,  he  is  nothing  if  not 
futile  and  ephemera)  in  eflfect,  and  it  was  seen  long 
since  that  in  life  and  death  Disraeli,  as  became  his 
genius  and  his  race,  was  the  Uncommonplace  in- 
carnate, the  antithesis  of  Grocerdom,  the  Satan  of 
that  revolt  against  the  yielding  habit  of  Jehovah- 
Bottles  the  spirit  whereof  is  fast  coming  to  be  our 
one  defence  against  socialism  and  the  dominion  of 
the  Common  Fool.  He  was  no  sentimentalist :  as 
what  great  artist  in  government  has  ever  been  ?  He 
loved  power  for  power's  sake,  and  recognising  to 
the  full  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  he 
preferred  his  England  to  the  world.  He  knew 
that  it  is  the  function  of  the  man  of  genius  to  show 
that  theory  is  only  theory,  and  that  in  the  House 
of  Morality  there  are  many  mansions.  To  that  end 
he  lived  and  died ;  and  it  is  not  until  one  has 
comprehended  the  comjilete  significance  of  his  life 
and  death  that  one  is  qualified  to  speak  with 
understanding  of  such  a  life  and  death  as  his  who 
passed  at  Khartoum. 


ALEXANDRE   DUMAS 

The  life  of  Dumas  is  not  ouly  a  monument  of  en-^ 
deavour  and  success,  it  is  a  sort  of  labyrinth  as  well. 

It   abounds  in  pseudonyms  and  dis- 

, ,  ,  ,  His 

guises,  in  sudden  and  unexpected  ap- 

,  ,     Components 

pearances  and  retreats  as  unexpected 

and  sudden,  in  scandals  and  in  rumours,  in 
mysteries  and  traps  and  ambuscades  of  every  kind. 
It  pleased  the  great  man  to  consider  himself  of 
more  importance  than  any  and  all  of  the  crowd  of 
collaborators  whose  ideas  he  developed,  whose  raw 
material  he  wrought  up  into  the  achievement  we 
know ;  and  he  was  given  to  take  credit  to  himself 
not  only  for  the  success  and  value  of  a  particular 
work  but  for  the  whole  thing — the  work  in  its 
quiddity,  so  to  speak,  and  resolved  into  its  original 
elements.  On  the  other  hand,  it  pleased  such  pain- 
ful creatures  as  MM.  Querard  and  '  Eugene  de  Mire- 
*court,'  as  it  has  since  pleased  Messrs.  Hitchman  and 
Fitzgerald  to  consider  the  second-  and  third-rate 
literary  persons  whom  Dumas  assimilated  in  such 
numbers  as  of  greater  interest  and  higher  merit 
than  Dumas.  To  them  the  jackals  were  far 
nobler  than  the  lion,  and  they  worked  their 
hardest  in  the  interest  of  the  pack.  It  was  their 
o 


34  VIEWS  AND  REVIE^VS 

mission  to  decompose  and  disinteg^-ate  the  macrnifi. 
cent  entity  which  M.  Blaze  de  Bury  very  happily 
nicknames  '  Dumas-Legion/  and  in  the  process  not 
to  render  his  own  unto  Caesar  but  to  take  from  him 
all  that  was  Caesar's,  and  divide  it  among  the  rnftU- 
nikins  he  had  absorbed.  And  their  work  was  in  its 
way  well  done  ;  for  have  we  not  seen  M.  Brunetiere 
exulting  in  agreement  and  fcilking  of  Dumas  as  one 
less  than  Eugene  Sue  and  not  much  bigger  than 
Gaillardet?  Of  course  the  ultimate  issue  of  the 
debate  is  not  doubtful.  Dumas  remains  to  the 
end  a  prodigy  of  force  and  industry,  a  miracle  of 
cleverness  and  accomplishment  and  ease,  a  tj'pe  of 
generous  and  abundant  humanity,  a  great  artist  in 
many  varieties  of  form,  a  prince  of  talkers  and 
story-tellers,  one  of  the  kings  of  the  stage,  a  bene- 
factor of  his  epoch  and  his  kind  ;  while  of  those 
who  assisted  him  in  the  production  of  his  immense 
achievement  the  most  exist  but  as  fractions  of 
the  larger  sum,  and  the  others  have  utterly  dis- 
appeared. 'Combien,'  says  his  son  in  that  excellent 
page  which  serves  to  preface  le  Fils  Naturel — '  com- 
'  bien  parmi  ceux  qui  devaient  rester  obscurs  se  sont 
'  e'claires  et  chauffes  a  ta  forge,  et  si  I'heure  des 
'  restitutions  sonnait,  quel  gain  pour  toi,  rien  qu'a 
*  reprendre  ce  que  tu  as  donne  et  ce  qu'on  t'a  pris  !  * 
That  is  the  true  verdict  of  posterity,  and  he  does 
well  who  abides  by  it. 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  35 

He  is  one  of  the  heroes  of  modern  art.  Envy 
and  scandal  have  done  their  worst  now.  The 
libeller  has  said  his  say ;  the  detec- 
tives who  make  a  specialty  of  literary  Himself 
forg-eries  have  proved  their  cases  one 
and  all ;  the  judges  of  matter  have  spoken,  and  so 
liave  the  critics  of  style  ;  the  distinguished  author 
of  Nana  has  taken  us  into  his  confidence  on 
the  subject;  we  have  heard  from  the  lamented 
Granier  and  others  as  much  as  was  to  be  heard 
on  the  question  of  ])lagiarism  in  general  and  the 
plagiarisms  of  Dumas  in  particular  ;  and  Mr.  Percy 
Fitzgerald  has  done  what  he  is  pleased  to  desig- 
nate the  'nightman's  work'  of  analysing  Antony 
and  Kean,  and  of  collecting  everji;hing  that  spite 
has  said  about  their  author's  life,  their  author's 
habits,  their  author's  manners  and  customs  and 
character :  of  whose  vanity,  mendacity,  immor- 
ality, a  score  of  improper  qualities  besides,  enough 
has  been  written  to  furnish  a  good-sized  library. 
And  the  result  of  it  all  is  that  Dumas  is  recog- 
nised for  a  force  in  modern  art  and  for  one  of  the 
greatest  inventors  and  amusers  the  century  has  pro- 
d  uced.  Whole  crowds  of  men  were  named  as  the  real 
authors  of  his  books  and  plays  ;  but  they  were  only 
readable  when  he  signed  for  them.  His  ideas  were 
traced  to  a  hundred  originals ;  but  they  had  all 
seemed  worthless  till  he  took  them  in  hand  and 
developed  them  according  to  their  innate  capa- 
city.    The  French  he  wrote  was  popular,  and  tiie 


30  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

style  at  his  command  was  none  of  the  loftiest,  aa 
his  critics  have  often  been  at  pains  to  show ;  but 
he  was  for  all  that  an  artist  at  once  original  and 
exemplary,  with  an  incomparable  instinct  of  selec- 
tion, a  constructive  faculty  not  equalled  among  tlie 
men  of  this  century,  an  understanding  of  what  is 
right  and  what  is  wrong  in  art  and  a  mastery  of 
his  materials  which  in  their  way  are  not  to  be 
paralleled  in  the  work  of  Sir  Walter  himself. 
Like  Napoleon,  he  was  '  a  natural  force  let  loose ' ; 
and  if  he  had  done  no  more  than  achieve  univer- 
sal renown  as  the  prince  of  raconteurs  and  a  com- 
manding position  as  a  novelist  wherever  novels 
are  read  he  would  still  have  done  much.  But 
he  did  a  vast  deal  more.  A  natural  force,  he 
wrought  in  the  right  direction,  as  natural  forces 
must  and  do.  He  amused  the  world  for  forty  years 
and  more ;  but  he  also  contributed  something  to 
the  general  sum  of  the  world's  artistic  experience 
and  capacity,  and  his  contribution  is  of  permanent 
worth  and  charm.  He  has  left  us  stories  which 
are  models  of  the  enchanting  art  of  narrative ; 
and,  with  a  definition  good  and  comprehensive 
enough  to  include  all  the  best  work  which  has  been 
produced  for  the  theatre  from  JEschylus  down  to 
Augier,  from  the  Chocphorce  on  to  le  Gendre  de  M, 
J'oirier,  he  has  given  us  types  of  the  romantic  and 
the  domestic  drama,  which,  new  when  he  produced 
them,  are  even  now  not  old,  and  which  as  regards 
e?iseutials  have  yet  to  be  improved  upon.    The  form 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  37 

and  aim  of  the  modern  drama,  as  we  know  it, 
have  been  often  enough  ascribed  in  the  ingeni- 
ous author  of  une  Chaine  and  the  Verre  d'Eau ; 
but  they  might  with  much  greater  truth  be  ascribed 
to  the  author  of  Antony  and  la  Tour  de  Nesle. 
Scribe  invents  and  eludes  where  Dumas  invents 
and  dares.  The  theory  of  Scribe  is  one  of  mere 
dexterity  :  his  drama  is  a  perpetual  chasse-croise 
at  the  edge  of  a  precipice,  a  dance  of  puppets 
among  swords  that  might  but  will  not  cut  and  eggs 
that  might  but  will  not  break ;  to  him  a  situation 
is  a  kind  of  tight-rope  to  be  crossed  with  ever  so 
much  agility  and  an  endless  affectation  of  peril  by 
all  his  characters  in  turn  :  in  fact,  as  M.  Dumas 
fils  has  said  of  him,  he  is  '  le  Shakespeare  des 
'ombres  chinoises.'  The  theory  of  Dumas  is  the 
very  antipodes  of  this.  '  All  I  want,'  he  said  in  a 
memorable  comparison  between  himself  and  Victor 
Hugo,  '  is  four  trestles,  four  boards,  two  actors, 
'  and  a  passion ' ;  and  his  good  plays  are  a  proof 
that  in  this  he  spoke  no  more  than  the  truth. 
Drama  to  him  was  so  much  emotion  in  action.  If 
he  invented  a  situation  he  accepted  its  issues  in 
their  entirety,  and  did  his  utmost  to  express  from 
it  all  the  passion  it  contained.  That  he  fails  to 
reach  the  highest  peaks  of  emotional  effect  is  no 
fault  of  his :  to  do  that  something  more  is  needed 
than  a  perfect  method,  something  other  than  a 
great  ambition  and  an  absolute  certainty  of  touch; 
and    Dumas   was   neither   a   Shakespeare    nor    an 


38  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

^schylus — he  was  not  even  an  Aiigier.  All  fhb 
samCj  he  has  produced  in  la  Tour  dc  Nesle  a 
romantic  play  which  M.  Zola  himself  pronounces 
the  ideal  of  the  genre  and  in  Antony  an  acliiove- 
ment  in  drawing-room  tragedy  which  is  out  of  all 
questioning  the  firsts  and  in  the  opinion  of  a  critic 
so  competent  and  so  keen  as  the  master's  son  is 
prohably  the  strongest^  thing  of  its  kind  in 
modern  literature.  On  this  latter  play  it  were 
difficult,  I  think,  to  bestow  too  much  attention. 
It  is  touched,  even  tainted,  with  the  manner  and 
the  affectation  of  its  epoch.  But  it  is  admirably 
imagined  and  contrived ;  it  is  very  daring,  and  it 
is  very  new ;  it  deals  with  the  men  and  women  of 
1830,  and— with  due  allowance  for  differences  of 
manners,  ideal,  and  personal  genius — it  is  in  its 
essentials  a  play  in  the  same  sense  as  Othello  and 
the  TrachinicB  are  plays  in  tbeirs.  It  is  the 
beginning,  as  I  believe,  not  only  of  les  Lionnes 
Pauvres  but  of  Therese  Baquin  and  la  Gla  as  well : 
just  as  la  Tour  de  Nesle  is  the  beginning  of  Patrie 
and  la  Jlaine. 


And  if  these  greater  and  loftier  pretensions  be 

still  contested  ;  if  the  theory  of  the  gifted  creature 

who  wrote  that  the  works  of  the  master 

At  Least      wizard  are  'like  summer  fruits  brought 

'  forth  abundantly  in  tlic  full  blaze  of 

'  sunshine,  which  do  not  keep ' — if  tliis  preposterous 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  39 

fantasy  be  generally  accepted,  there  will  yet  be 
much  in  Dumas  to  venerate  and  love.  If  Antony 
were  of  no  more  account  than  an  epliemeral 
burlesque;  if  la  Heine  Margdt  and  the  immortal 
trilofry  of  the  Musketeers — that  '^epic  of  friend- 
sliij) ' — were  dead  as  morality  and  as  literature 
alike ;  if  it  were  nothing  to  have  re-cast  the 
novel  of  adventure,  formulated  the  modern  drama, 
and  perfected  the  drama  of  incident ;  if  to  have 
sent  all  France  to  the  theatre  to  see  in  three 
dimensions  those  stories  of  Chicot,  Edmond  Dantes, 
d'Artagnan,  which  it  knew  by  heart  from  books 
were  an  achievement  within  the  reach  of  every 
scribbler  who  dabbles  in  letters ;  if  all  this  were 
true,  and  Dumas  were  merely  a  piece  of  human 
journalism,  produced  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow, 
there  would  still  be  enough  of  him  to  make  his 
a  memorable  name.  He  was  a  prodigy — of  amia- 
bility, cleverness,  energy,  daring,  charm,  industry 
— if  he  was  nothing  else.  Gronow  tells  that  he 
has  sat  at  table  with  Dumas  and  Brougham, 
and  that  Brougham,  out-faced  and  out-talked, 
was  forced  to  quit  the  field.  '^J'ai  conserve,' 
says  M.  Maxime  du  Camp,  in  his  admirable 
Souvenirs  litteraires,  'd' Alexandre  Dumas  un 
souvenir  ineffacable ;  malgre  un  certain  lalsser- 
aller  qui  tenait  a  I'exuberance  de  sa  nature, 
c'etait  un  homme  dont  tous  les  sentiments  etaient 
clcves.  On  a  etc?  iiijuste  pour  lui  ;  comme  il  avait 
e'normement  d'csprit,  on  I'a  accuse  d'etre  leger ; 


40  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

'  comme  il  produisait  avec  une  facilite  incroyable, 
'  on  I'a  accuse  de  gacher  la  besog^e,  et,  comme  il 
'  etait  prodigue,  on  I'a  accuse  de  manquer  de  tenue. 
'  Ces  reproches  m'ont  toujours  paru  miserables.' 
This  is  much  ;  but  it  is  not  nearly  all.  He  had, 
this  independent  witness  goes  on  to  note,  'une 
'  generosite  naturelle  qui  ne  comptait  jamais  ;  il 
'  ressemblait  a  une  corne  d'abondance  qui  se  vide 
'  sans  cesse  dans  les  mains  tendues ;  la  moitie, 
'  sinon  plus,  de  I' argent  gagne  par  lui  a  ete  donnee.' 
That  is  true ;  and  it  is  also  true  that  he  gave  at 
/east  as  largely  of  himself — his  prodigious  teniperar 
ment,  his  generous  gaiety,  his  big,  manly  heart, 
his  turn  for  chivalry,  his  gallant  and  delightful 
genius — as  of  his  money.  He  was  reputed  a 
violent  and  luxurious  debauchee  ;  and  he  mostly 
lived  in  an  attic — (the  worst  room  in  the  house  and 
therefore  the  only  one  he  could  call  his  own) — with 
a  camp-bed  and  tlie  deal  table  at  which  he  wrote. 
He  passed  for  a  loud-mouthed  idler;  and  during 
many  years  his  daily  average  of  work  was  fourteen 
hours  for  months  on  end.  *Ivre  de  puissance,' 
says  George  Sand  of  him,  but  '  foncierement  bon.' 
They  used  to  hear  him  laughing  as  he  wrote,  and 
when  he  killed  Porthos  he  did  no  more  th.at  day. 
It  would  have  been  worth  while  to  figure  as  one  of 
the  crowd  of  friends  and  parasites  who  lived  at  rack 
and  manger  in  his  house,  for  the  mere  pleasure 
of  seeing  him  descend  upon  them  from  his  toil  of 
moving  mountains  and  sharing  in  lliat  pleasing  lialf- 


ALEXANDRE  DUMAS  41 

hour  of  talk  which  was  his  common  refreshment. 
After  that  he  would  return  to  the  attic  and  the  deal 
table,  and  move  more  mountains.  With  intervals 
of  travel,  sport,  adventure,  and  what  in  France  is 
called  '  I'amour ' — (it  is  strange,  by  the  way,  that 
he  was  never  a  hero  of  Carlyle's) — he  lived  in  this 
way  more  or  less  for  forty  years  or  so  ;  and  when  he 
left  Paris  for  the  last  time  he  had  but  two  napoleons 
in  his  pocket.  '  I  had  only  one  when  I  came  here 
first,'  quoth  he,  '  and  yet  they  call  me  a  spend- 
thrift.' That  was  his  way ;  and  while  the  result  is 
not  for  Dr.  Smiles  to  chronicle,  I  for  one  persist  in 
regarding  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  accepted  as  not 
less  exemplary  than  delightful. 


On  M.  du  Camp's  authority  there  is  a  charming 
touch  to  add  to  his  son's  description  of  him.     *  II 

*  me    semble,'    said    the    royal    old 

His 
})rodigal  in  his  last  illness,  'que  je 
,      .  ,,  .     Monument 

suis  au  sommet  d  un  monument  qui 

'  tremble  comme  si  les  fondations  etaient  assises 

*  sur  le  sable.'  'Soisen  paix/ replied  the  author 
of  the  Demi-Monde :   '  le  monument  est  bien  bati, 

*  et  la  base  est  solide. '  He  was  right,  as  we  know. 
It  is  good  and  fitting  that  Dumas  should  have  a 
monument  in  the  Paris  he  amazed  and  delighted 
and  amused  so  long.      But  he  could  have  done 


42  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

without  one.  In  what  language  is  he  not  read  ? 
and  where  that  he  is  read  is  he  not  loved  ?  '  Exegi 
monumentum,'  he  might  have  said  :  'and  wherever 
romance  is  a  necessary  of  life,  there  shall  you  look 
for  it,  and  not  in  vain.' 


GEORGE    MEREDITH 

To  read  Mr,  Meredith's  novels  with  insight  is  to 
find  them  full  of  the  rarest  qualities  in  fiction. 
If  their  author  has  a  great  caj)acity 
for  unsatisfactory  writing  he  has  Uis  Qualities 
capacities  not  less  great  for  writing 
that  is  satisfactory  in  the  highest  degree.  He 
has  the  tragic  instinct  and  endowment,  and  he 
has  the  comic  as  well ;  he  is  an  ardent  student  of 
character  and  life  ;  he  has  wit  of  the  swiftest,  the 
most  comprehensive,  the  most  luminous,  and 
humour  that  can  be  fantastic  or  ironical  or  human 
at  his  pleasure;  he  has  passion  and  he  has  imagina- 
tion ;  he  has  considered  sex — the  great  subj  ect, 
the  leaven  of  imaginative  art — with  notable  auda- 
city and  insight.  He  is  as  capable  of  handling  a 
vice  or  an  emotion  as  he  is  of  managing  an  affecta- 
tion. He  can  be  trivial,  or  grotesque,  or  satirical, 
or  splendid  ;  and  whether  his  milieu  be  romantic 
or  actual,  whether  his  personages  be  heroic  or 
sordid,  he  goes  about  his  task  with  the  same  assur- 
ance and  intelligence.  In  his  best  work  he  takes 
rank  with  the  world's  novelists.  He  is  a  companion 
for  Balzac  and  Richardson,  an  intimate  for  Fielding 
and  Cervantes,      His  figures  fall  into  their  place 


«4  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

beside  the  greatest  of  their  kind ;  and  when  you 
think  of  Lucy  Feverel  and  Mrs.  Berry,  of  Evan 
Harrington's  Countess  Saldanha  and  the  Lady 
Charlotte  of  Emilia  in  England,  of  the  two  ohl 
men  in  Barry  Richmond  and  the  Sir  Everard 
llomfrey  of  Beauchamp's  Career,  of  Renee  and 
Cecilia,  of  Emilia  and  Rhoda  Fleming,  of  Rose 
Jocelyn  and  Lady  Blandish  and  Ripton  Thompson, 
they  have  in  the  mind's  eye  a  value  scarce  inferior 
to  that  of  Clarissa  and  Lovelace,  of  Bath  and 
Western  and  Booth,  of  Andrew  Fairservice  and 
Elspeth  Mucklebacket,  of  Philippe  Bridau  and 
Vautrin  and  Balthasar  Claes.  In  the  world  of 
man's  creation  his  people  are  citizens  to  match  the 
noblest;  they  are  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  imagina- 
tion, the  peers  in  their  own  right  of  the  society  of 
romance.  And  for  all  that,  their  state  is  mostly 
desolate  and  lonely  and  forlorn. 


For  Mr.  Meredith  is  one  of  the  worst  and  least 
attractive  of  great  writers  as  well  as  one  of  the 
best  and  most  fascinating.  He  is  a 
His  Defects  sun  that  has  broken  out  into  innum- 
erable spots.  The  better  half  of  his 
genius  is  always  sufiFering  eclipse  from  tlie  worse 
half.  He  writes  with  the  pen  of  a  great  artist  in 
his  left  hand  and  the  razor  of  a  spiritual  suicide 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  45 

in  his  right.  He  is  the  master  and  the  victin)  of 
a  monstrous  cleverness  which  is  neither  to  hold 
nor  to  bind,  and  will  not  permit  him  to  do  things 
as  an  honest,  simple  person  of  genius  would.  As 
Shakespeare,  in  Johnson's  phrase,  lost  the  world 
for  a  quibble  and  was  content  to  lose  it,  so  does 
Mr.  Meredith  discrown  himself  of  the  sovereignty 
of  contemporary  romance  to  put  on  the  cap  and 
bells  of  the  professional  wit.  He  is  not  content  to 
be  plain  Jupiter :  his  lightnings  are  less  to  him 
than  his  fireworks  ;  and  his  pages  so  teem  with  fine 
sayings  and  magniloquent  epigrams  and  gorgeous 
images  and  fantastic  locutions  that  the  mind 
would  welcome  dulness  as  a  bright  relief.  He  is 
tediously  amusing ;  he  is  brilliant  to  the  point  of 
being  obscure  ;  his  helpfulness  is  so  extravagant  as 
to  worry  and  confound.  That  is  the  secret  of  his 
unpopularity.  His  stories  are  not  often  good 
stories  and  are  seldom  well  told  ;  his  ingenuity  and 
intelligence  are  always  misleading  him  into  treating 
mere  episodes  as  solemnly  and  elaborately  as  main 
incidents ;  he  is  ever  ready  to  discuss,  to  ramble, 
to  theorise,  to  dogmatise,  to  indulge  in  a  little 
irony  or  a  little  reflection  or  a  little  artistic  mis- 
demeanour of  some  sort.  But  other  novelists  have 
done  these  things  before  him,  and  have  been  none 
the  less  popular,  and  are  actually  none  the  less 
readable.  None,  however,  has  pushed  the  foppery 
of  style  and  intellect  to  such  a  point  as  Mr.  Mere- 
dith.    Not  infrequently  he  writes  page  after  paga 


40  VIEWS  AND  REVIE^V'S 

of  English  as  ripe  and  sound  and  unaflFected  as  heart 
could  wish  ;  and  you  can  but  impute  to  wantonness 
and  recklessness  the  splendid  impertinences  that 
intrude  elsewhere.  To  read  him  at  the  rate  of  two 
or  three  chapters  a  day  is  to  have  a  sincere  and 
hearty  admiration  for  him  and  a  devout  anxiety 
to  forget  his  defects  and  make  much  of  his  merits. 
But  they  are  few  who  can  take  a  novel  on  such 
terms  as  these,  and  to  read  your  Meredith  straight 
off  is  to  h.ave  an  indigestion  of  epigram,  and  to  be 
incapable  of  distinguishing  good  from  bad  :  the 
author  of  the  parting  between  Richard  and  Lucy 
Feverel — a  high-water  mark  of  novelistic  passion 
and  emotion — from  the  creator  of  Mr.  Raikes  and 
Dr.  Slirapnel,  which  are  two  of  the  most  flagrant 
uiirerilities  ever  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  fiction 
by  an  artist  of  genius. 


On  the  whole,  I  think,  he  does  not  often  say 

anytliing  not  worth  hearing.     He  is  too  wise  for 

that;  and,  besides,  he  is  strenuously 

in  earnest  about  liis  work.     He  has  a 
Wai/ 

noble  sense  of  the  dignity  of  art  and 

the  responsibilities  of  the  artist ;  he  will  set  down 
nothing  that  is  to  his  mind  unworthy  to  be 
recorded  ;  his  treatment  of  his  material  is  distin- 
guished by  the  presence  of  an  intellectual  passion 


GEOllGE  iMEREDlTH  47 

(as  it  were)  that  makes  whatever  he  does  con- 
siderable and  deserving  of  attention  and  respect. 
But  unhappily  the  will  is  not  seldom  unequal  to 
the  deed  :  the  achievement  is  often  leagues  in  rear 
of  the  inspiration  ;  the  attempt  at  completeness  is 
too  laboured  and  too  manifest — the  feat  is  done 
but  by  a  painful  and  ungraceful  process.  There 
is  genius,  but  there  is  not  felicity  :  that,  one  is 
inclined  to  say,  is  tlie  distinguishing  note  of  Mr. 
Meredith's  work,  in  prose  and  verse  alike.  There 
are  magnificent  exceptions,  of  course,  but  they 
prove  the  rule  and,  broken  though  it  be,  there  is 
no  gainsaying  its  existence.  To  be  concentrated 
in  form,  to  be  suggestive  in  material,  to  say  no- 
thing that  is  not  of  permanent  value,  and  only 
to  say  it  in  such  terms  as  are  charged  to  the 
fullest  with  significance — this  would  seem  to  be 
the  aim  and  end  of  Mr.  Meredith's  ambition.  Of 
simplicity  in  his  own  person  he  appears  incapable. 
The  texture  of  his  expression  must  be  stiff  with 
allusion,  or  he  deems  it  ill  spun  ;  there  must  be 
something  of  antic  in  his  speech,  or  he  cannot 
believe  he  is  addressing  himself  to  the  Immortals ; 
he  has  praised  with  perfect  understanding  the 
lucidity,  the  elegance,  the  ease,  of  Moliere,  and  yet 
his  aim  in  art  (it  would  appear)  is  to  be  Moliere's 
antipodes,  and  to  vanquish  by  congestion,  clotted- 
ness,  an  anxious  and  determined  dandyism  of  form 
and  style.  There  is  something  bourgeois  in  his  in- 
tolerance of  the  commonplace,  something  fanatical 


«  VIEWS  AND  REVIEVFS 

in  the  intemperance  of  his  regard  for  artifice. 
' Le  dandy,'  says  Baudelaire,   'doit  aspirer  a  etre 

*  sublime  sans  interruption.     II  doit  vivre  et  dormir 

*  devant  un  miroir,'  That,  you  are  tempted  to 
believe,  is  Mr.  Meredith's  theory  of  expression. 
'  Ce  qu'il  y  a  dans  le  mauvais  gout,'  is  elsewhere 
the  opinion  of  the  same  unamiable  artist  in  para- 
dox, 'c'est  le  plaisir  aristocratique  de  deplaire.' 
Is  that-,  you  ask  yourself,  the  reason  why  Mr. 
Meredith  is  so  contemptuous  of  the  general  public? 
— why  he  will  stoop  to  no  sort  of  concession  nor 
permit  himself  a  mite  of  patience  with  the  herd 
whose  intellect  is  content  with  such  poor  fodder 
as  Scott  and  Dickens  and  Dumas .''  Be  it  as  it 
may,  the  effect  is  the  same.  Our  author  is 
bent  upon  being  '  uninterruptedly  sublime ' ;  and 
we  must  take  him  as  he  wills  and  as  we  find  him. 
He  loses  of  course ;  and  we  suffer.  But  none  the 
less  do  we  cherish  his  society,  and  none  the  less 
are  we  interested  in  his  processes,  and  enchanted 
(when  we  are  clever  enough)  by  his  results.  He 
lacks  felicity,  I  have  said  ;  but  he  has  charm  as 
well  as  power,  and,  once  his  rule  is  accepted, 
there  is  no  way  to  shake  him  off.  The  position 
is  tliat  of  the  antique  tyrant  in  a  commonwealth 
once  republican  and  free.  You  resent  the  domina- 
tion,  but  you  enjoy  it  too,  and  with  or  against  youf 
will  you  admire  the  author  of  your  slavery. 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  49 

Rhoda  Fleming  is  one  of  the  least  known  of  the 
novels,  and  in  a  sense  it  is  one  of  the  most  disagree- 
able.    To  the  general  it  has  always 

been  caviare,  and  caviare  it  is  likely      _,, 

J^leming 
to  remain  ;  for  the  general  is  before 

all  things  respectable,  and  no  such  savage  and 
scathing  attack  upon  the  superstitions  of  respec- 
tability as  Rhoda  Fleming  has  been  written.  And 
besides,  the  emotions  developed  are  too  tragic, 
the  personages  too  elementary  in  kind  and  too 
powerful  in  degree,  the  effects  too  poignant  and 
too  sorrowful.  In  these  days  people  read  to  be 
amused.  They  care  for  no  passion  that  is  not 
decent  in  itself  and  whose  expression  is  not  re- 
strained. It  irks  them  to  grapple  with  problems 
capable  of  none  save  a  tragic  solution.  And  when 
Mr.  Meredith  goes  digging  in  a  very  bad  temper 
with  things  in  general  into  the  deeper  strata,  the 
primitive  deposits,  of  human  nature,  the  public  is 
the  reverse  of  profoundly  interested  in  the  outcome 
of  his  exploration  and  the  results  of  his  labour. 
But  for  them  whose  eye  is  for  real  literature  and 
such  literary  essentials  as  character  largely  seen 
and  largely  presented  and  as  passion  deeply  felt  and 
poignantly  expressed  there  is  such  a  feast  in  Rhoda 
Fleming  as  no  other  English  novelist  alive  has 
spread.  The  book,  it  is  true,  is  full  of  failures. 
ITiere  is,  for  instance,  the  old  bank  porter  Anthony, 
who  is  such  a  failure  as  only  a  great  novelist  may 

perpetrate  and  survive ;  wlio  suggests  (with  some 
D 


60  VIEWS  AND  REVIEVV^S 

other  of  Mr.  Meredith's  creations)  a  close,  de- 
liberate, and  completely  unsuccessful  imitation 
of  Diclvcns :  a  ^vriter  with  whom  Mr,  Meredith  is 
not  averse  from  entering  into  competition,  and 
who,  so  manifest  on  these  occasions  is  his 
superiority,  may  almost  be  described  as  the 
other's  evil  genius.  Again,  there  is  Algernon  tlie 
fool,  of  wliom  his  author  is  so  bitterly  contemptu- 
ous that  he  is  never  once  permitted  to  live  and 
move  and  have  any  sort  of  being  whatever  and 
who,  though  he  bears  a  principal  part  in  the  in- 
trigue, like  the  Blifil  of  Tom  Jones  is  so  constantly 
illuminated  by  the  lightnings  of  the  ironical  mode 
of  presentation  as  always  to  seem  unreal  in  him- 
self and  seriously  to  imperil  the  reality  of  the 
story.  And,  lastly,  tliere  are  the  chivalrous  Percy 
Waring  and  the  inscrutable  Mrs.  Lovell,  two  gentle 
ghosts  whose  proper  place  is  the  sliadow-land  of 
the  American  novel.  But  wlien  all  these  are  re- 
moved (and  for  the  judicious  re;ider  their  removal 
is  far  from  difficult)  a  treasure  of  reality  remains. 
What  an  intensity  of  life  it  is  that  hurries  and 
throbs  and  burns  through  the  veins  of  the  two 
sisters — Dahlia  the  victim,  llhoda  the  executioner  ! 
Where  else  in  English  fiction  is  such  a  '  human  oak 
log'  as  their  father,  the  Kentish  yeoman  WiUiam 
Fleming?  And  where  in  English  fiction  is  such  a 
problem  presented  as  that  in  the  evolution  of  which 
those  three — witn  a  following  so  well  selected 
and  achieved  as  llobei-t  Arnistnmg  and  Jonathan 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  6J 

Kccles  and  the  evil  ruffian  Serl^sfott,  a  type  of  the 
bumpkin  ^'■oiie  wroiiji;',  and  iNIaster  Gammon,  that 
type  of  tlie  I)unii)kin  old  and  obstinate,  a 
sort  of  human  saurian — are  daslied  toii^etber,  and 
f^rouiid  against  each  other  till  tlie  weakest  and  best 
of  the  three  is  broken  to  pieces?  Mr,  Meredith 
may  and  does  fail  conspicuously  to  interest  you 
in  Anthony  Hackbut  and  Algernon  Blancove  and 
Percy  Waring;  but  he  knows  every  fibre  of  the 
rest,  and  he  makes  your  knowledge  as  intimate  and 
comprehensive  as  his  own.  VV^ith  these  he  is  never 
at  fault  and  never  out  of  touch.  They  have  the 
unity  of  effect,  the  vigorous  simplicity,  of  life 
that  belong  to  great  creative  art ;  and  at  their 
highest  stress  of  emotion,  the  culmination  of  their 
passion,  they  appeal  to  and  affect  you  with  a  force 
and  a  directness  that  suggest  the  highest  achieve- 
ment of  Webster.  Of  course  this  sounds  excessive. 
The  expression  of  human  feeling  in  the  coil  of  a 
tragic  situation  is  not  a  characteristic  of  modern 
fiction.  It  is  thought  to  be  not  consistent  with  the 
theory  and  practice  of  realism  ;  and  the  average 
novelist  is  afraid  of  it,  the  average  reader  is  only 
affected  by  it  when  he  goes  to  look  for  it  in  poetry. 
But  the  book  is  there  to  show  that  such  praise  is 
deserved  ;  and  they  who  doubt  it  have  only  to  read 
the  chapters  called  respectively  '  When  the  Night 
'  is  Darkest '  and  '  Dahlia's  Frenzy '  to  be  convinced 
and  doubt  no  longer.  It  has  been  objected  to  the 
climax  of  llhoda  Flemimj  that  it  is  unnecessarily 


52  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

inhumane,  and  that  Dahlia  dead  were  better  art 
than  Dahlia  living  and  incapable  of  love  and  joy. 
But  the  book,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  merciless  impeach- 
ment of  respectability ;  and  as  the  spectacle  of  a 
ruined  and  broken  life  is  infinitely  more  discom- 
forting than  that  of  a  noble  death,  I  take  it  that 
Mr.  Meredith  was  right  to  prefer  his  present  ending 
to  the  alternative,  inasmuch  as  the  painfulness  of 
that  impression  he  wished  to  produce  and  the 
potency  of  that  moral  he  chose  to  draw  are  im- 
mensely heightened  and  strengthened  thereby. 

Opinions  differ,  and  there  are  those,  I  believe, 
to    whom    Alvan    and    Clotilde    von    Riidiger — 

'acrobats  of  the  affections'  they  have 
The  Tragic    ,  „    ,  , 

-,  ,.  ■  been  called — are  pleasant  companions. 
Comedians 

and  the  story   of  those   feats  in   the 

gymnastics  of  sentinientalism  in  which  they 
lived  to  shine  is  the  prettiest  reading  imaginable. 
But  others  not  so  fortimate  or,  to  be  plain, 
more  honestly  obtuse  persist  in  finding  that  story 
tedious,  and  the  bewildering  appearances  it  deals 
with  not  human  beings — not  of  the  stock  of 
Rose  Jocelyn  and  Sir  Everard  Romfrey,  of 
Dahlia  Fleming  and  Lucy  Feverel  and  Richmond 
Roy — but  creatures  of  gossamer  and  rainbow,  phan- 
tasms of  spiritual  romance,  abstractions  of  remote, 
dispiriting  points  in  sexual  philosophy. 

f 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  69 

Just  as  Moliere  in  the  fig-ures  of  Alceste  and 
Tartuffe  has  summarised  and  embodied  all  that 
we  need  to  know  of  indignant  honesty 
and  the  false  fervour  of  sanctimonious  The  Egoist 
animalism,  so  in  the  person  of  Sir  Wil- 
loughby  Patterne  has  Mr.  Meredith  succeeded  in 
expressing  the  qualities  of  egoism  as  the  egoist 
appears  in  his  relations  with  women  and  in  hia 
conception  and  exercise  of  the  passion  of  love. 
Between  the  means  of  the  two  men  there  is  not, 
nor  can  be,  any  sort  of  comparison.  Moliere  il 
brief,  exquisite,  lucid  :  classic  in  his  union  of  ease 
and  strength,  of  purity  and  sufficiency,  of  austerity 
and  charm.  In  The  Egoist  Mr.  Meredith  is  even 
more  artificial  and  affected  than  his  wont :  he 
bristles  with  allusions,  he  teems  with  hints  and  side- 
hits  and  false  alarms,  he  glitters  with  phrases,  he 
riots  in  intellectual  points  and  philosopliical  fancies; 
and  though  his  style  does  nowhere  else  become  him 
60  well,  his  cleverness  is  yet  so  reckless  and  indomi- 
table as  to  be  almost  as  fatiguing  here  as  everywhere. 
But  in  their  matter  the  great  Frenchman  and  he 
have  not  much  to  envy  each  other.  Sir  Willoughby 
Patterne  is  a  '  document  on  humanity '  of  the 
highest  value ;  and  to  him  that  would  know  of 
egoism  and  the  egoist  the  study  of  Sir  Willoughby 
is  indispensable.  There  is  something  in  him  of  us 
all.  He  is  a  compendium  of  the  Personal  in  man  ; 
and  if  in  him  the  abstract  Egoist  have  not  taken  on 
his  final  shape  and  become  classic  and  typicul  it  is 


64  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

not  that  Mr.  Meredith  has  forgotten  anything  in 
his  composition  but  ratlier  that  there  are  certain 
defects  of  form,  certain  structural  faults  and  weak- 
nesses, wliich  prevent  you  from  accepting  as  con- 
clusive the  aspect  of  the  mass  of  him.  But  the 
Moliere  of  the  future  (if  the  future  be  that  fortu- 
ni,te)  has  but  to  pick  and  choose  with  discretion 
here  to  find  the  stuff  of  a  companion  figure  to 
Arnolphe  and  Alceste  and  Celimene. 


His  verse  has  all  the  faults  and  only  some  of 
the  merits  of  his  prose.     Thus  he  will  rhyme  you 

off  a  ballad,  and  to  break  the  secret 
In  Metre     of  that  balhid  you  have  to  take  to 

yourself  a  dark  lantern  and  a  case 
of  jemmies.  I  like  him  best  in  The  Nuptiah  of 
Attila.  If  he  always  wrote  as  here,  and  wei-e 
always  as  here  sustained  in  inspiration,  rapid  <*.' 
march,  nervous  of  phrase,  apt  of  metaphor,  and 
moving  in  effect,  he  would  be  delightful  to  t!ie 
general,  and  that  without  sacrificing  on  the  vilo 
and  filthy  altar  of  poj)ularity.  Here  he  is  suc- 
cessfully himself,  and  what  more  is  there  to  Siay? 
You  clap  for  Harlequin,  and  you  kneel  to  Apollo. 
Ml-.  Meredith  doubles  the  parts,  and  is  irresistible 
in  both.     Such  fii'e,  such  vision,  such  energy  on 


GEORGE  MEREDITH  65 

the  one  hand  and  on  the  other  such  agility 
and  athletic  grace  are  not  often  found  in  combi- 
nation. 


This  is  the  merit  and  distinction  of  art :  to  be 

more   real    than  reality,   to    be    not  nature   but 

nature's  essence.     It  is  the  artist's 

-        .  ,  The  Fashion 

function    not  to   copy   but    to   syn-  f  a  t 

thesise  :     to     eliminate    from     that 

gross   confusion    of    actuality   which    is    his  raw 

material  whatever  is  accidental,  idle,  irrelevant, 

and   select  for   perpetuation  that  only   which   is 

appropriate  and  immortal.      Always  artistic,  Mr. 

Meredith's  work  is  often  great  art. 


BYRON 

Two  obvious  reasons  why  Bj'ron  has  long  been  a 

prophet  more  honoured  abroad  than  at   home  are 

_  ,      his  life  and  his  work.     He  is  the  most 

Byron  and  .     _  .       ,      ,.  „ 

,,     ,,,     , ,      romantic  fiarure  m  the  literature  of 
the  World  ,    ,  . 

the  century,  and   his  romance  is  of 

that  splendid  and  daring  cast  which  the  people  of 
Britiiin — 'an  aristocracy  materialised  and  null,  a 
'  middle  class  purblind  and  hideous,  a  lower  class 
'  crude  and  brutal ' — prefers  to  regard  with  suspicion 
and  disfavour.  He  is  the  type  of  them  that  prove 
in  defiance  of  precept  that  the  safest  path  is  not 
always  midway,  and  that  the  golden  rule  is  some- 
times unspeakably  worthless  :  who  set  what  seems  a 
horrible  example,  create  an  apparently  shameful  pre- 
cedent, and  yet  contrive  to  approve  themselves  an 
honour  to  their  country  and  the  race.  To  be  a  good 
Briton  a  man  must  trade  profitably,  marry  respect- 
ably, live  cleanly,  avoid  excess,  revere  the  estab- 
lished order,  and  wear  his  heart  in  his  breeches 
pocket  or  anywhere  but  on  his  sleeve.  Byron 
did  none  of  these  things,  though  he  was  a  public 
character,  and  ought  for  the  example's  sake  to  have 
done  them  all,  and  done  them  ostentatiously.  He 
lived    hard,    and   drank   hard,    and    played   hard. 


BYRON  57 

He  was  flippant  in  speech  and  eccentric  in 
attire.  He  thouf^ht  little  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
conjugal  tie,  and  said  so ;  and  he  married  but  to 
divide  from  his  wife — who  was  an  incarnation  of 
the  national  virtue  of  respectability — under  cir- 
cumstances too  mysterious  not  to  be  discredit- 
able. He  was  hooted  into  exile,  and  so  far  from 
reforming  he  did  even  worse  than  he  had  done 
before.  After  bewildering  Venice  with  his  wicked- 
ness and  consorting  with  atheists  like  Shelley  and 
conspirators  like  young  Ganiba,  he  went  away  on  a 
sort  of  wild-goose  chase  to  Greece,  and  died  there 
with  every  circumstance  of  publicity.  Also  his 
work  was  every  whit  as  abominable  in  the  eyes  of 
his  countrymen  as  his  life.  It  is  said  that  the  theory 
and  practice  of  British  art  are  subject  to  the  influence 
of  the  British  school-girl,  and  that  he  is  unworthy 
the  name  of  artist  whose  achievement  is  of  a  kind 
to  call  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  youth.  Byron  waa 
contemptuous  of  youth,  and  did  not  hesitate  to 
write — in  Beppo  and  in  Cain,  in  Manfred  and  Don 
Juan  and  the  Vision — exactly  as  he  pleased.  In  three 
words,  he  made  himself  offensively  conspicuous, 
and  from  being  infinitely  popular  became  utterly 
contemptible.  Too  long  had  people  listened  to 
the  scream  of  this  eagle  in  wonder  and  in  per- 
turbation, and  the  moment  he  disappeared  they 
grew  ashamed  of  their  emotion  and  angry  with 
its  cause,  and  began  to  hearken  to  otiier  and 
more  melodious  voices — to  Shelley  and  Keats,  to 


68  VIEWS  AND  REVIEVFS 

Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  and  the  '  faultless  and 
'  fervent  melodies  of  Tennyson.'  In  course  of  time 
Byron  was  forgotten,  or  only  remembered  with 
disdain ;  and  when  Thackeray,  the  representative 
Briton,  the  artist  Philistine,  the  foe  of  all  that  is 
excessive  or  abnormal  or  rebellious,  took  it 
upon  himself  to  flout  the  author  of  Don  Juan 
openly  and  to  lift  up  his  heavy  hand  against  the 
fops  and  fanatics  who  had  affected  the  master's 
humours,  he  did  so  amid  general  applause.  Mean- 
wliile,  however,  the  genius  and  the  personality 
of  Byron  had  come  to  be  vital  influences  all  the 
world  over,  and  his  voice  had  been  recognised  a8 
the  most  human  and  the  least  insular  raised  on  Eng- 
lish gi-ound  since  Shakespeare's.  In  Russia  he  had 
created  Puslikin  and  Lermontoff;  in  Germany  he 
had  awakened  Heine,  inspired  Schumann,  and 
been  saluted  as  an  equal  by  the  poet  of  Faust 
himself;  in  Spain  he  had  had  a  share  in  moulding 
the  noisy  and  unequal  tjilent  of  Espronceda ;  in 
Itiily  he  had  helped  to  develop  and  to  sluipe  the 
meianclioly  and  daring  genius  of  Leopai-di ;  and  in 
France  lie  had  been  one  of  the  presiding  forces 
of  a  great  aesthetic  revolution.  To  the  men  of 
1830  he  was  a  special  and  peculiar  hero.  Hugo 
tamed  in  his  wake  to  Spain  and  Italy  and  the 
East  for  inspiration.  Musset,  as  Mr.  Swinburne 
has  said — too  bitterly  and  strongly  said — became  in 
a  fasliion  a  Kaled  to  his  Lara,  'his  female  page 
'or  attendant  dwarf.'     He  was   in  some  sort  the 


BYRON  69 

prandsiro  of  the  Buridan  and  the  Antony  of 
Dnmas.  Berlioz  went  to  him  for  the  material 
for  his  Harold  en  Italie,  his  Corsaire  overture,  and 
his  Episode.  Delacroix  painted  the  Barque  de  Don 
Juan  from  him^  with  the  Massacre  de  Scio,  the 
Marino  Faliero,  the  Combat  du  Giaour  et  du 
Pacha,  and  many  a  notable  picture  more.  Is  it 
at  all  surprising  that  M.  Taine  should  have 
found  heart  to  say  that  alone  among  modern 
poets  Byron  'atteint  a  la  cime'?  or  that  Mazzini 
should  have  reproached  us  with  our  unaccount- 
able neglect  of  him  and  with  our  scandalous 
forgetfulness  of  the  immense  work  done  by 
him  in  giving  a  "  European  role  ...  to  English 
literature'  and  in  awakening  all  over  the  Con- 
tinent so  much  'appreciation  and  sympathy  for 
England'.? 


He  had  his  share  in  the  work  of  making  Matthew 

Arnold  possible,  but  he  is  the  antipodes  of  those 

men  of  culture  and  contemplation — 

.,  ...  .  ,         .  ,    Byron  and 

those  artists  pensive  and  curious  and      ^ 

sedately  self-contained — whom  Arnold 

best  loved  and  of  whom  the   nearest  to  hand  is 

Wordsworth.     Byron    and    Wordsworth  are   like 

the   Lucifer  and    the   Michael   of   the   Vision  of 

Judgment,       Byron's  was  the  genius  of  revolt,  aa 


60  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Wordsworth's  was  the  genius  of  dignified  and  useful 
Bubmission  ;  Byron  preached  the  dogma  of  private 
revolution,  Wordsworth  the  dogma  of  private 
apotheosis ;  Byron's  theory  of  life  was  one  of 
liberty  and  self-sacrifice,  Wordsworth's  one  of  self- 
restraint  and  self-improvement ;  Byron's  practice 
was  dictated  by  a  vigorous  and  voluptuous  egoism, 
Wordsworth's  by  a  benign  and  lofty  selfishness ; 
Byron  was  the  'passionate  and  dauntless  soldier 
'  of  a  forlorn  hope,'  Wordsworth  a  kind  of  inspired 
clergyman.  Both  were  influences  for  good,  and 
both  are  likely  to  be  influences  for  good  for  some 
time  to  come.  Which  is  the  better  and  stronger  is 
a  question  that  can  hardly  be  determined  now.  It 
is  certain  that  Byron's  star  has  waned,  and  that 
Wordsworth's  has  waxed ;  but  it  is  also  certain 
that  there  are  moments  in  life  when  the  Ode  to 
Venice  is  almost  as  refreshing  and  as  precious  as  the 
ode  on  the  Intimations,  and  when  the  epic  mockery 
of  Don  Juan  is  to  the  full  as  beneficial  as  the 
chaste  philosophy  of  The  Excursion  and  the  Ode  to 
Duty.  Arnold  was  of  course  with  Michael  heart 
and  soul,  and  was  only  interested  in  our  Lucifer. 
He  approached  his  subject  in  a  spirit  of  undue 
deprecation.  He  thought  it  necessary  to  cite 
Scherer's  opinion  that  Byron  is  but  a  coxcomb 
and  a  rhetorician  :  partly,  it  would  appear,  for 
the  pleasure  of  seeming  to  agree  with  it  in  a  kind 
of  way  and  partly  to  have  the  satisfaction  of  distin- 
guishing and  of  showing  it  to  be  a  mistake.     Then, 


BYRON  61 

he  could  not  quote  Goethe  without  apologising^ 
for  the  warmth  of  that  consummate  artist's  expres 
sions  and  explaining  some  of  them  away.  Again, 
he  was  pitiful  or  disdainful,  or  both,  oi  Scott's 
estimate ;  and  he  did  not  care  to  discuss  the 
sentiment  which  made  that  great  and  good  man 
think  Cain  and  the  Giaour  fit  stuff  for  family 
reading  on  a  Sunday  after  prayers,  though  as 
Mr.  Ruskin  has  pointed  out,  in  one  of  the  wisest 
and  subtlest  bits  of  criticism  I  know,  the  sentiment 
is  both  natural  and  beautiful,  and  should  assist  us 
not  a  little  in  the  task  of  judging  Byron  and  of 
knowing  him  for  what  he  was.  That  Arnold  should 
institute  a  comparison  between  Leopardi  and  Byrou 
was  probably  inevitable  :  Leopardi  had  culture  and 
the  philosophic  mind,  which  Byron  had  not ;  he 
is  incapable  of  influencing  the  general  heart,  a» 
Byron  can ;  he  is  a  critics'  poet,  which  Byron 
can  never  be ;  he  was  always  an  artist,  which 
Byron  was  not;  and — it  were  Arnoldian  to  take 
the  comparison  seriously.  Byron  was  not  inter- 
ested in  words  and  phrases  but  in  the  greater 
truths  of  destiny  and  emotion.  His  empire  is 
over  the  imagination  and  the  passions.  His 
personality  was  many-sided  enough  to  make  his 
egoism  representative.  And  as  mankind  is 
wont  to  feel  first  and  to  think  afterwards,  a 
single  one  of  his  heart-cries  may  prove  to  the 
world  of  greater  value  as  a  moral  agency  than  all 
the  intellectual  reflections  that  Leopardi  contrived 


62  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

to  utter.  After  examining  this  and  that  opinion 
and  doubting  over  and  deprecating  them  all,  Arnold 
touched  firm  ground  at  last  in  a  dictum  of  Mr.  Swin- 
burne's, the  most  pertinent  and  profound  since 
those  of  Goethe,  to  the  effect  that  in  Byron  there  is  a 
*  splendid  and  imperishable  excellence  which  covers 
'  all  his  offences  and  outweighs  all  his  defects : 
'the  excellence  of  sincerity  and  strength.'  With 
this  'noble  praise'  our  critic  agreed  so  vigorously 
tliat  it  became  the  key-note  of  the  latter  part  of 
his  summing  up,  and  in  the  end  you  found  him 
declaring  Byron  the  equal  of  Wordsworth,  and 
asserting  of  this  'glorious  pair'  that  'when  the 
'  year  1900  is  turned,  and  the  nation  comes  to 
'  recount  her  poetic  glories  in  the  century  which 
'  has  just  then  ended,  the  first  names  with  her 
'  will  be  these.'  The  prophecy  is  as  little  like  to 
commend  itself  to  the  pious  votary  of  Keats  as 
to  the  ardent  Shelleyite  :  there  are  familiars  of 
the  Teunysonian  Muse,  the  Sibyl  of  Rizpah  and 
Vastness  and  Lucretius  and  The  Voyage,  to  whom 
it  must  seem  impertinent  beyond  the  prophet's 
wont ;  there  are — (but  they  scarce  count) — who 
grub  (as  for  truffles)  for  meanings  in  Browning. 
But  it  was  not  uttered  to  please,  and  in  truth  it  hag 
enough  of  plausibility  to  infuriate  whatever  poetr 
sects  there  be.     Especially  the  Wordsworthiaus. 


HUGO 

To  many  Hugo  was  of  the  race  of  ^schylus  and 
Shakespeare,  a  world-poet  in  the  sense  that  Dante 
was,  an  artist  supreme  alike  in  genius 
and  in  accomplishment.  To  others  he  His  Critics 
was  but  a  great  master  of  words  and 
cadences,  with  a  gift  of  lyric  utterance  and  inspira- 
tion rarely  surpassed  but  with  a  personality  so 
vigorous  and  excessive  as  to  reduce  its  literary  ex- 
pression— in  epic,  drama,  fiction,  satire  and  ode  and 
song — to  the  level  of  work  essentially  subjective, 
in  sentiment  as  in  form,  in  intention  as  in  effect. 
The  debate  is  one  in  which  the  only  possible 
arbiter  is  Time ;  and  to  Time  the  final  judgment 
may  be  committed.  What  is  certain  is  that  there 
is  one  point  on  which  both  dissidents  and  devout 
— the  heretics  who  deny  with  Matthew  Arnold 
and  the  orthodox  who  worship  with  Mr.  Swin- 
burne and  M.  de  Banville — are  absolutely  agreed. 
Plainly  Hugo  was  the  greatest  man  of  letters  of 
his  day.  It  has  been  given  to  tew  or  none  to  live  a 
life  so  full  of  efi'ort  and  achievement,  so  rich  in 
honour  and  success  and  fame.  Born  almost  with 
the  century,  he  was  a  writer  at  fifteen,  and  at  his 
death  he  was  writing  still ;  so  that  the  record  of 


64  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

his  career  embraces  a  period  of  more  than  sixty 
years.  There  is  hardly  a  department  of  art  to  a 
foremost  place  in  which  he  did  not  prove  his  right. 
From  first  to  last,  from  the  time  of  Chateaubriand 
to  the  time  of  Zola,  he  was  a  leader  of  men ; 
and  with  his  departure  from  the  scene  the  un- 
divided sovereignty  of  literature  became  a  thing 
of  the  past  like  Alexander's  empire. 


In  1826,  in  a  second  set  of  Odes  et  Ballades,  he 
announced  his  vocation   in  unmistakeable  terms. 

He  was  a  lyric  poet  and  the  c.iutain 
Some  Causes      .  '        .  ^^. 

or  a  new  emprise.  His  genius  wjis 
and  Effects     ^       .  f  .    f 

too  large  and  energetic  to  move  at 

ease  in  the  narrow  garment  prescribed  as  the  poet's 
wear  by  the  dullards  and  the  pedants  who  had 
followed  Boileau.  He  began  to  repeat  the  rhythms 
of  Ronsard  and  the  Pleiad  ;  to  deal  in  the  richest 
rhymes  and  in  words  and  verses  tricked  with 
new-spangled  ore ;  to  be  curious  in  cadences, 
careless  of  stereotyped  rules,  prodigal  of  inven- 
tion and  experiment,  defiant  of  much  long  re- 
cognised as  good  sense,  contemptuous  of  much 
till  then  applauded  as  good  taste.  In  a  word,  he 
was  the  Hugo  of  the  hundred  volumes  we  know  : 
an  artist,  that  is,  endowed  with  a  technical  imagina- 
tion of  the  highest  quality,  the  very  genius  of  style, 


HUGO  65 

and  a  sense  of  the  plastic  quality  of  words  un- 
equalled, perhaps,  since  Milton.  The  time  was 
ripe  for  him  :  within  France  and  without  it  was  hlg 
with  revolution.  In  verse  there  were  the  examples 
of  Andre  Chenier  and  Lamartine ;  in  prose  the  work 
of  Rousseau  and  Diderot,  of  Bernardin  de  Saint- 
Pierre  and  Chateauhriand  ;  in  war  and  politics  the 
tremendous  tradition  of  Napoleon.  Goethe  and 
Schiller  had  recreated  romance  and  established 
the  foundations  of  a  new  palace  of  art ;  their 
theory  and  practice  had  been  popularised  in  the 
novels  of  AV'alter  Scott ;  and  in  the  life  and  work 
of  Byron  the  race  had  such  an  example  of  revolt, 
such  an  incitement  to  liberty  and  change,  such 
a  passionate  and  persuasive  argument  against 
autliority  and  convention,  as  had  never  before 
been  felt  in  art.  Hugo  like  all  great  artists 
was  essentially  a  child  of  his  age  :  '  Rebellion  lay 
*  in  his  way,  and  he  found  it.'  In  1827  he  published 
his  Cromwell,  and  came  forth  as  a  rebel  confessed 
and  unashamed.  It  is  an  unapproachable  pro- 
duction, tedious  in  the  closet,  impossible  upon  the 
stage  ;  and  to  compare  it  to  such  work  as  tluit 
which  at  some  and  twenty  Keats  had  given  to  the 
world — Hyperion,  for  instance,  or  the  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes — is  to  glory  in  tlie  name  of  Briton.  But  it 
had  its  value  then,  and  as  an  historical  document 
it  has  its  value  now.  The  preface  was  at  once  a 
profession  of  faith  and  a  proclamation  of  war.     It 

is  crude,  it  is  limited,  it  is  mistaken,  in  places  it  is 
E 


66  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

even  absurd.  But  from  the  moment  of  its  appear- 
ance the  old  order  was  practically  closed.  It  prepared 
the  way  for  Albertus  and  for  Antony,  for  Rolla  and 
the  Tour  do  Nesle ;  and  it  was  also  the  'fiat  liue 
in  deference  to  which  the  world  has  accepted  with 
more  or  less  of  resignation  the  partial  eclipse  of 
art  and  morals  effected  in  Salammho  and  I' Education 
sentimentale  and  the  Egyptian  darkness  achieved 
in  work  like  la  Terre  and  une  Vic  and  les  Blasphemes, 
In  its  ringing  periods,  its  plangent  antitheses  and 
aesthetic  epigrams,  it  preluded  and  vindicated  the 
excesses  of  whatsoever  manifestations  of  roman- 
ticism mankind  and  the  arts  have  since  been  called 
upon  to  consider  and  endure  :  from  the  humours  of 
Petrus  Borel  to  the  experiments  of  Claude  Monet 
and  the  '  discoveries '  of  Richard  Wagner. 


It  is  too  often  forgotten  that  from  the  first  Hugo 
was  associated  with  men  of  pretensions  and  capii- 

cities  not  greatly  inferior  to  his  own. 
Environment  and  that  in  no  direction  was  victory 

the  work  of  his  single  arm.  In 
painting  the  initiative  had  been  tiiken  years  be- 
fore the  publication  of  the  Cromwell  manifesto  by 
Gericault  with  the  famous  Radeau  de  la  Mcduse, 
and  by  Delacroix  witli  the  Dante  et  Virgile  (1822) 
and  the  Massacre  de  Scio  (1823).      In  music  Eer- 


HUGO  67 

Hoz,  at  this  time  a  student  in  the  Conservatoire, 
was  fightinj^  hard  against  Cherubini  and  the  bo- 
wigged  ones  for  liberty  of  expression  and  leave  to 
admire  and  imitate  the  audacities  of  Weber  and 
Beethoven,  and  tliree  years  hence,  in  the  year  of 
Eernani,  was  to  set  his  mark  upon  the  art  with  the 
Symphonie  fantastique.  On  the  stage  as  early  as 
1824  Frederick  and  Firmin  had  realised  in  the 
personages  of  Macaire  and  Bertrand  the  grotesque 
ideal,  the  combination  of  humour  and  terror,  of 
which  the  character  of  Cromwell  was  put  forward  as 
the  earliest  expression,  and  had  realised  it  so  com- 
pletely that  their  work  has  taken  rank  with  the 
greater  and  the  more  lasting  results  of  the  move- 
ment. In  the  literature  of  drama  the  old  order  was 
ruined  and  the  victory  won  on  all  essential  points 
not  in  1830  with  Hernani  but  in  1829  with  Henri 
Trots  et  sa  Cour,  the  first  of  the  innumerable 
successes  of  Alexandre  Dumas,  who  determined  at 
a  single  stroke  the  fundamental  qualities  of  struc- 
ture and  form  and  material,  and  left  his  chief  uo 
question  to  solve  save  that  of  diction  and  style. 
Musset's  earlier  poems  date  from  1828,  the  year  of 
les  Orientates,  Gautier's  from  1830 ;  and  these  are 
also  the  dates  of  Balzac's  Chouans  and  la  Peau  de 
Chagrin.  Moreover,  among  the  intimates  of  the 
young  leader  were  men  like  Sainte-Beuve,  who  was 
two  years  his  junior,  and  the  brothers  Deschamps  : 
whose  influence  was  doubtless  exerted  more  fre- 
quently to  encourage  than  to  repress.    Towards  the 


G8  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

end  we  lost  sig^lit  of  all  this,  and  saw  in  Victor  Ilujfc 
not  so  much  the  most  ji^lorious  survival  of  roman- 
ticism as  romanticism  itself,  the  movement  is  flesh 
and  blood,  the  revolution  in  general  'summed  up 

*  and  closed '  in  a  single  figure.  This  agreeable 
view  of  things  was  Hugo's  own.  From  the  be- 
ginning he  took  himself  with  perfect  seriousness, 
and  his  followers,  however  enthusiastic  in  admira- 
tion, had  excellent  warrant  from  above.  '  II  trone 
'  trop,'  says  Berlioz  of  him  somewhere  ;  and  M. 
Maxime  du  Camp  has  given  an  edifying  account 
of  the  means  he  was  wont  to  use  to  make  himself 
beloved  Jind  honoured  by  the  youth  who  came  to 
him  for  counsel  and  encouragement.  How  per- 
fectly he  succeeded  in  this  the  political  part  of  his 
function  is  matter  of  history.  Gautier's  first  visit 
to  him  was  that  of  a  devotee  to  his  divinity ;  and 
years  afterwards  the  good  poet  confessed  that  not 
even  in  pitch  darkness  and  in  a  cellar  fathoms 
under  ground  should  he  dare  to  whisper  to  him- 
self that  a  verse  of  the  Master's  was  bad.  So  far  as 
devotion  went  there  were  innumerable  Gautiers. 
Sainte-Beuve  was  not  long  a  pillar  of  orthodoxy  ; 
Dumas  was  always  conscious  of  his  own  pre-emin- 
ence in  certJiin  qualities^  and  made  light  of  Hugo's 
dramas  as  candidly  as  he  made  much  of  the  style 
in  which  they  are  written  ;  and  when  some  creature 
of  unwisdom  saluted  Delacroix  as  'the  Hugo  of 

*  painting,'  the  artist  of  the  Afnrino  Falirro  and  the 
Barque  de  Don  J  nun  resented  the  compliment  with 


HUGO  69 

bitterness.     But  these  were  exceptions.    The  youth 
of  1830  were  Hugolaters  almost  to  a  man. 


Their  enthusiasm  was  not  all  irrational.     Hugo's 
supremacy  was  not  that  he  was  the  greatest  artist 
in   essentials,    for    here    Dumas   was 
immeasurably  his  superior.      It  was    Equipment 
not  that    he    knew   best    tlie    lieart  and 

of  man,  or  had  apprehended  most  Achievement 
thorouglily  the  conditions  of  life  ;  for 
Balzac  so  far  surpassed  him  in  these  sciences  that 
comparison  was  impossible.  It  was  not  that  he 
sang  the  truest  song  or  uttered  the  deepest  word, 
for  INlusset  is  the  poet  of  Rolla  and  the  Niiits  in 
verse  and  the  poet  of  Fantasio  and  Lorenzaccio 
and  Carmosine  in  prose.  But  the  epoch  Hugo 
represented  was  interested  in  the  manner  rather 
than  the  substance  of  things  :  the  revolution  at 
whose  front  he  had  been  set  and  whose  most  shin- 
ing figure  he  became  was  largely  a  revolution  of 
externals.  With  an  immense  amount  of  enthusiasm 
there  was,  as  Sainte-Beuve  confessed,  an  incredible 
amount  of  ignorance — so  that  Cromwell  was  sup- 
posed to  be  historical ;  and  with  a  passionate 
delight  in  form  there  co-existed  a  strangely  im- 
l)errect  understanding  of  material — so  that  Hernani 


70  VIEWS  AND  RE\  lEWS 

was  supposed  to  be  Shakespearean.  To  this  ignoi 
ance  and  to  this  imperfect  understanding  Hugo 
owed  a  certain  part  of  his  authority ;  tlie  other 
and  greater  he  got  from  his  unrivalled  mastery  of 
style,  from  his  extraordinary  skill  as  an  artist  in 
words.  To  the  opposing  faction  his  innovations 
were  horrible  :  his  verse  was  poison,  his  exam])le 
an  outrage,  his  prosody  a  violation  of  all  laws,  his 
rhymes  and  tropes  and  metaphors  so  many  offences 
against  Heaven  and  the  Muse.  But  to  the  ardent 
youngsters  who  fought  beneath  his  banner  it  was 
his  to  give  a  something  priceless  and  unique — a 
something  glorious  to  France  and  never  before 
exampled  in  her  literature.  For  the  distichs  of 
Boileau — 'strong,  heavy,  useful,  like  pairs  of  tongs,' 
— he  found  them  alexandrines  with  the  leap  and 
sparkle  of  sea  waves  and  the  sound  of  clashing 
swords  and  the  colours  of  sunset  and  the  dawn. 
They  were  tired  of  whitewash  and  cold  distemper ; 
and  he  gave  them  hangings  of  brocade  and  tapes- 
tries of  })rice  and  tissues  stiff  with  gold  and  glow- 
ing with  new  dyes.  He  flung  them  handfuls  of 
jcjwels  where  his  rivals  scattered  liandfuls  of  marbles. 
And  they  paid  him  for  his  gifts  with  an  intemper- 
ance of  worship,  a  fury  of  belief,  a  rapture  of 
admiration,  such  as  no  other  man  has  known.  The 
substance  was  striking,  was  peculiar,  was  novel 
and  full  of  charm ;  but  the  manner  was  all  this 
and  something  besides — was  magniiicent,  was  in- 
toxicating, was  irresistible;    and  Victor  Hugo  by 


HUGO  71 

virtue  of  it  became  the  foremost  man  of  literary 
France.  The  great  battle  of  Ilernani  vvas  merely  a 
battle  of  style.  From  Dumas  the  ai'tist  of  Henri 
Trots  and  Antony,  the  language  of  Boileau  was 
safe  enough  ;  and  his  triumph^  all-important  and 
significant  as  it  was,  seemed  neither  fatal  nor 
abominable.  It  was  another  matter  with  Hernani. 
Its  success  meant  ruin  for  the  Academy  and  de- 
struction for  the  idiom  of  Delille  and  M.  de  Jouy ; 
and  the  classicists  mustered  in  force,  and  did  their 
utmost  to  stay  the  coming  wrath  and  arrest  the 
impending  doom.  They  failed  of  course ;  for  they 
fought  with  a  vague  yet  limited  apprehension  of 
the  question  at  issue,  they  had  nothing  to  give 
in  place  of  the  thing  they  hated.  And  Victor 
Hugo  was  made  captain  of  the  victorious  host, 
while  the  men  who  might  have  been  in  a  certain 
sort  his  rivals  took  service  as  lieutenants,  and 
accepted  his  ensign  for  their  own. 


All  liis  life  long  he  was  addicted  to  attitude ;  all 
Ills  life  long  he  was  a  poseur  of  the  purest  water. 
He    seems    to    have   considered   the 
affectation  of  superiority  an  essential     His  Diary 
quality  in  art ;   for  just  as  the  cock 
in  Mrs.  Poyser's  apothegm  believed  that  the  sun 
got  up  to  hear  him  crow,  so  to  the  poet  of  the 


72  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Legende  and  the  Contemplations  it  must  have  seen-ed 
as  if  the  human  race  existed  but  to  consider  the 
use  he  made  of  his  'oracular  tongue.'  How 
tremendous  his  utterances  sometimes  were — in- 
formed with  what  majesty  yet  with  what  brilliance 
— is  one  of  the  things  that  every  schoolboy  knows. 
One  no  more  needs  to  insist  upon  the  merits  of  liis 
best  manner  than  to  emphasise  the  faults  of  his 
worst.  At  his  best  as  at  his  worst,  however,  he 
was  always  an  artist  in  his  way.  His  speech  was 
nothing  if  not  artificial — in  the  good  sense  of  the 
word  sometimes  and  sometimes  in  the  bad.  Sim- 
plicity (it  seemed)  was  impossible  to  him.  In  the 
quest  of  expression,  the  cult  of  antithesis,  the 
pursuit  of  effect,  he  sacrificed  directness  and 
plainness  with  not  less  consistency  than  com- 
placency. In  that  tissue  of  '  apocalyptic  epigram  ' 
which  to  him  was  style  there  was  no  room  for 
truth  and  soberness.  His  I'atmos  was  a  place  of 
mirrors,  and  before  them  he  draped  himself  in  his 
phrases  like  Frederick  in  the  mantle  of  Iluy  li];is. 
That  this  grandiosity  was  unnatural  and  unreal 
was  proved  by  the  publication  of  Chases  vucs. 
When  Hugo  wrote  for  himself  he  wrote  alnutst 
as  simply  and  straightforwardly  as  Dumas,  Tlie 
effect  is  disconcerting.  You  rub  your  eyes  in 
amazement.  It  is  evidently  Hugo.  But  Hugo 
plain,  sober,  direct?  Hugo  without  rhetoric.^ 
Hugo  declining  antithesis  and  content  to  be  no 
gaudier   than    his   neighbours  ?     Hugo    expressing 


HUGO  73 

himself  in  the  fearless  old  fashion  of  pre-romantic 
ages?  A  page  of  commonplace  from  Mr.  Meredith, 
a  book  for  boarding-schools  by  M.  Zola,  were  not 
more  startling. 


Some  primary  qualities  of  his  genius  are  pretty 

evenly  balanced  by  some  primary  faults.      Thus, 

for  breadth  and  brilliance  of  concep-     _ 

,  ~  .        .      For  and 

tion,  for  energy  and  sweep  of  imagi- 

nation,  for  the  power  of  dealing  as  a 
master  with  the  greater  forces  of  nature,  he  is 
unsurpassed  among  modern  men.  But  the  concep- 
tion is  too  often  found  to  be  empty  as  well  as 
spacious  ;  the  imagination  is  too  often  tainted  with 
insincerity  ;  in  his  dramas  of  tlie  elements  there 
are  too  many  such  falsehoods  as  abound  in  his 
dramas  of  the  emotions.  Again,  he  is  some- 
times grand  and  often  grandiose  ;  but  he  has  a 
trick  of  affecting  the  grandiose  and  the  grand 
which  is  constant  and  intolerable.  He  had  the 
genius  of  style  in  such  fulness  as  entitles  him 
to  rank  with  the  great  artists  in  words  of  aU 
time.  His  sense  of  verbal  colour  and  verbal 
music  is  beyond  criticism  ;  his  rh}i;hmical  capacity 
is  something  prodigious.  He  so  revived  and 
renewed  the  language  of  France  that  in  his 
hands  it  became  an  instrument  not   unworthy  to 


74  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

compete  with  Shakespeare's  English  and  the  German 
of  Goethe  and  Heine ;  and  in  the  structure  and 
capacity  of  all  manner  of  French  metrical  forms  he 
effected  such  a  change  that  he  may  fairly  be  said 
to  have  received  the  orchestra  of  Rameau  from  his 
predecessors  and  to  have  bequeathed  his  heirs  the 
orchestra  of  Berlioz.  On  the  other  hand,  in  much 
of  his  later  work  his  mannerisms  in  prose  and  in 
verse  are  discomfortably  glaring ;  the  outcome  of 
his  unsurpassable  literary  faculty  is  often  no  more 
than  a  parade  or  triumph  of  the  vocables ;  there 
were  times  when  his  brain  appears  to  have 
become  a  mere  machine  for  the  production  of 
antitheses  and  sterile  conceits.  ^Vhat  is  perhaps 
more  damning  than  all,  his  work  is  saturate  in  his 
own  remarkable  personality,  and  is  objective  only 
here  and  there.  His  dramas  are  but  five-act  lyrics, 
his  epics  the  romance  of  an  egoist,  his  history  is 
confession,  his  criticism  the  opinions  of  Victor 
Hugo.  Even  his  lyrics,  the  'fine  flower'  of  his 
genius,  the  loveliest  expression  of  the  language, 
have  not  escaped  reproach  as  a  '  Psalter  of  Subjec- 
'  tivity.'  Even  his  essays  in  prose  romance — a 
form  of  art  on  which  he  has  stamped  his  image  and 
superscription  in  a  manner  all  his  own,  the  work 
by  which  he  is  best  known  to  humanity  at  large — 
are  vitiated  by  the  same  defect.  For  one  that 
believes  in  Bishop  Myriel  as  Bishop  Myriel  there 
are  a  hundred  who  see  in  him  only  a  pose  of  Victor 
Hugo;    it  is  the  same  with  Ursel  and  Javert,  with 


HUGO  75 

Cimourdain  and  Lantenac  and  Josiane ;  the  very 
pieuvre  of  les  Travailkurs  is  a  Hugolater  at  heart. 
It  is  a  proof  of  his  commanding  personality,  that 
in  spite  of  these  ohjections  he  held  in  enchantment 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  men  for  over  sixty  years. 
He  is  almost  a  literature  in  himself;  and  if  it  be 
true  that  his  work  is  as  wholly  lacking  in  the 
radiant  sanity  of  Shakespeare's  as  it  is  in  the  ex- 
quisite good  sense  of  Voltaire's,  it  is  also  true  tliat 
he  left  the  world  far  richer  than  he  found  it. 


To  select  an  anthology  from  his  work  were  surely 

the  pleasantest  of  tasks.      One  richer  in  grace  and 

passion  and  sweetness  might  he  chosen 

„  , ,  ,  What  Lives 

out  of  Musset ;    one  wrought  more 

truly  of  the  finer  stuflF  of  humanity 

as  well  as  more  bountifully  touched  with  tact  and 

dignity  and  temper  from  the  work  of  Tennyson. 

T^ut  the  Hugo  selection  would  combine  the  rarest 

technical  merits  with  a  set  of  interests  all  its  own. 

It  would  give,  for  instance,  the  Stella  of  the  Chdti- 

■ntents  and  the  Pauv7'es  Gens  of  the  Lcgende.     On 

one  page  would  be  found  that  adiuinihle  Souvenir 

de  la  Nuit  du  Quatre,  which  is  at  once  the  inipeacli- 

ment  and  the  condemnation  of  the  Coup  d'Etat; 

and  on  another  the  little  epic  of  Eviradnus,  with 


76  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

its  immortal  serenade,  a  culmination  of  youth  and 
romance  and  love : 

'  Si  tu  veux,  faisons  un  reve. 
Montons  sur  deux  palefrois. 
Tu  m'emnienes,  je  t'enleve. 
L'oiseau  chante  dans  les  bois. 


AUons-nous-en  par  I'Autriche ! 
Nous  aurons  I'aube  a  nos  fronts. 
Je  serai  grand  et  toi  riche, 
Puisque  nous  nous  aimerons. 


Tu  seras  dame  et  moi  comte. 
Viens,  men  coeur  s'epanouit. 
Viens,  nous  conterons  ce  conte 
Aux  etoiles  de  la  nuit.' 

Here,  a  summary  of  all  the  interests  of  romanticism, 
would  be  the  complaint  of  Gastibelza  : 

'  Un  jour  d'6t€,  ou  tout  dtait  lumi^re, 

Vie  et  douceur, 
Elle  s'en  vint  jouer  dans  la  rivlfere 

Avec  sa  sccur. 
Je  vis  le  pied  de  sa  jeune  compagne 

Et  son  genou  .  .  . — 
Le  vent  qui  vient  i  travers  la  montagne 

Me  rendra  fou  ! ' — 

here  the  adorable  Vidlle  Chanson  du  Jeune  Tetnps : 

'  Rose,  droite  sur  ses  hanches, 
Leva  son  beau  bras  tremblant 
Pour  prendre  une  mure  aux  branches : 
Je  ne  vis  pas  son  bras  blanc. 

Une  eau  courait,  fraiche  et  creuse, 

Sur  les  mousses  de  velours  ; 

Et  la  nature  amoureuse 

Dormait  dans  les  grands  bois  sourds.' — 

and  here,  not  unworthy  to  be   remembered  Tith 
Proud  Maisie,  that  wonderful  harmony  of  legend 


HUGO  77 

and  superstition  and  the  facts  and  dreams  of  com- 
mon life,  the  death-song  of  Fantine  : 

'  Nous  acheterons  de  bien  belles  choses, 
En  nous  promenant  le  long  de  faubourgs. 

La  Vierge-Marie  aupres  de  mon  poele 

Est  venue  hier,  en  manteau  brode, 
Et  m'a  dit :  Voici,  cache  sous  mon  voile, 

Le  petit  qu'un  jour  tu  m'as  demand^. 
Courez  a  la  ville  ;  ayez  de  la  toile, 

Achetez  du  fil,  achetez  un  de. 

Les  bluets  sont  bleus,  les  roses  sont  roses, 
Les  bluets  sont  bleus,  j'aime  mes  amours.' 

And  from  this  masterpiece  of  simple  and  direct 
emotion,  which  to  me  has  always  seemed  the  high- 
water  mark  of  Hugo's  lyrical  achievement  as  well 
as  the  most  human  of  his  utterances,  one  might 
pass  on  to  masterpieces  of  another  inspiration  :  to 
the  luxurious  and  charming  graces  of  Sara  la  Bai- 
gneuse ;  to  the  superb  crescendo  and  diminuendo  of 
les  Djinns ;  to  '^  Si  vous  n'avez  rien  a  me  dire,'  that 
daintiest  of  songlets ;  to  the  ringing  rhymes  and 
gallant  spirit  of  the  Pas  d'Armes  du  Roi  Jean  : 


'  Sus,  ma  bete, 
De  fa^on 
Que  je  fete 
Ce  grison  ! 
Je  te  bailie 
Pour  ripaille 
Plus  de  paille. 
Plus  de  son. 


Qu'un  gros  frere, 
Gai,  friand, 
Ne  pent  faire, 
Mendiant 
Par  les  places 
Ou  tu  passes, 
De  grimaces 
En  priant  1 ' — 


to  the  melodious  tenderness  of  '  Si  tu  voulai.s, 
Madelaine ' ;  to  the  gay  music  of  the  Stances  d 
Jeanne : 


78 


VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 


'  Je  ne  me  mets  pas  en  peine 
Du  clocher  ni  du  beffroi. 
Je  ne  sais  rien  de  la  reine, 
Et  je  ne  sais  rien  du  roi.'— 

to  the  admirable  song  of  the  wind  of  the  sea ; 


'Quels  sont  les  bruits  sourds? 
Ecoutez  vers  I'onde 
Cette  voix  profonde 
Qui  pleure  toujours. 
Et  qui  toujours  gronde. 


Quoiqu'un  son  plus  claire 
Parfois  I'interrompe  .  .  . 
Le  vent  de  la  mer 
Souffle  dans  sa  trompe.' — 


to  the  Romance  Mauresque,  to  the  barbaric  fury  of 
les  Rettres,  to  the  magnificent  rodomontade  of  the 
Romancero  du  Cid.  '  J'en  passe,  et  des  meilleurs,' 
as  Ruy  Gomez  observes  of  his  ancestors.  Here  at 
any  rate  are  jewels  enough  to  furnish  forth  a  casket 
that  should  be  one  of  the  richest  of  its  kind  ?  The 
worst  is,  tliey  are  most  of  them  not  necessaries  but 
luxuries.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  life  with- 
out Shakespeare  and  Burns,  without  Paradise  Lost 
and  the  Intimations  ode  and  tlie  immortal  pageant 
of  the  Canterbury  Tales ;  but  (the  technical  ques- 
tion apart)  to  imagine  it  wanting  Hugo's  lyrics  is 
easy  enough.  The  largesse  of  which  he  was  so 
prodigal  has  but  an  arbitrary  and  conventional 
value.  Like  the  magician's  money  mucli  has 
clianged,  almost  in  the  act  of  distribution,  into 
witliored  leaves  ;  and  such  of  it  as  seems  minted 
of  good  metal  is  not  for  general  circulation. 


HEINE 

Heine  had  a  light  hand  with  the  branding-iron, 

and   marked   his   subjects   not  more  neatly   than 

indelibly.      And  really  he  alone  were  _,    ^^.„  . 

^  ■'  The  Villainy 

capable  of  dealing  adequate  vengeance 

upon  his  translators.   His  verse  has  only    _         ,  ,. 

,        ,  .  ,        ~         .    ,.„        Translation 

violent  lovers  or  violent  foes ;  indmer- 

ence  is  impossible.  Once  read  as  it  deserves^  it 
becomes  one  of  the  loveliest  of  our  spiritual 
acquisitions.  We  hate  to  see  it  tampered  with  ; 
we  are  on  thorns  as  the  translator  approaches,  and 
we  resent  his  operations  as  an  individual  hurt,  a 
personal  affront.  What  business  has  he  to  be 
trampling  among  our  borders  and  crushing  our 
flowers  with  his  stupid  hobnails?  Why  cannot  he 
carry  his  zeal  for  topsy-turvy  horticulture  else- 
where? He  comes  and  lays  a  brutal  hand  on  our 
pet  growths,  snips  off  their  graces^  shapes  them 
anew  according  to  his  own  ridiculous  ideal,  paints 
and  varnishes  them  with  a  villainous  compound 
of  his  contrivance,  and  then  bids  us  admire  the 
effect  and  thank  him  for  its  production  !  Is  any 
name  too  hard  for  such  a  creature?  and  could 
any  vengeance  be  too  deadly?  If  he  walked  into 
your    garden   and   amused   himself  so   witli    your 


80  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

cabbages,  you  could  put  him  in  prison.  But  into 
your  poets  he  can  stump  his  way  at  will,  and  ujion 
them  he  can  do  his  pleasure.  And  he  does  it.  How 
many  men  have  brutalised  the  elegance,  the  grace, 
the  winning  urbanity  of  Horace  !  By  how  many 
coarse  and  stupid  fingers  has  Catullus  been  smudged 
and  fumbled  and  mauled  !  To  turn  Faust  into 
English  (in  the  original  metres)  is  a  fashionable 
occupation ;  there  are  more  perversions  of  the 
Commedia  than  one  cares  to  recall ;  there  is  scarce 
a  great  or  even  a  good  work  of  the  human  mind 
but  has  been  thus  bedevilled  and  defonned.  Don 
Quixote,  le  Pl-re  Goriot,  The  Frogs,  The  Decameron — • 
the  trail  of  the  translator  is  over  them  all.  iMessrs. 
Payne  and  Lang  and  Swinburne  have  turned  poor 
Villon  into  a  citizen  of  Bedford  Park,  Fitzgerald 
and  Florence  jMacarthy  have  Englished  Caldoron, 
Messrs.  Pope,  Gladstone  and  others  have  done 
their  worst  with  Homer.  If  Rossetti  had  not  suc- 
ceeded with  la  Vita  Nuova,  if  Fitzgerald  had  not 
ennobled  Omar,  if  Mr.  Lang  had  not  bettered  upon 
Banville  and  Gerard  de  Nerval,  the  word  'trans- 
'  lator' would  be  odious  as  the  word 'occupy.*  And 
'  occupy '  on  the  autliority  of  Mrs.  Dorothy  Tear- 
sheet  is  an  odious  word  indeed. 

The  fact  is,  the  translator  too  often  forgets  the 
difference  between  his  subject  and  himself;  he  is 


HEINE  81 

too  often  a  common  graveyard  mason  that  would 
play  the  sculptor.  And  it  is  not  nearly  enough 
for  him  to  be  a  decent  craftsman.  To 
give  an  adequate  idea  oi  an  artist  s 
work  a  man  must  be  himself  an  artist  of 
equal  force  and  versatility  with  his  original.  Tlie 
typical  translator  makes  clever  enough  verses, 
but  Heine's  accomplishment  is  remote  from  him 
as  Heine's  genius.  He  perverts  his  author  as 
rhyme  and  rhythm  will.  No  charge  of  verbal  in- 
accuracy need  therefore  be  made,  for  we  do  not 
expect  a  literal  fidelity  in  our  workman.  Let  him 
convey  the  spirit  of  his  original,  and  that,  so  far  as 
meaning  goes,  is  enough.  But  we  do  expect  of 
him  a  something  that  shall  recall  his  author's 
form,  his  author's  personality,  his  autlior's  charm 
of  diction  and  of  style  ;  and  here  it  is  that  such  an 
interpreter  as  Sir  Theodore  Martin  (say)  fails  with 
such  assurance  and  ill-fortune.  The  movement  of 
Heine's  rhythms,  simple  as  they  seem,  is  not  spon- 
taneous ;  it  is  an  effect  of  art :  the  poet  laboured  at 
his  cadences  as  at  his  meanings.  Artificial  he  is, 
but  he  has  the  wonderful  quality  of  never  seeming 
artificial.  His  verses  dance  and  sway  like  the  nixies 
he  loved.  Their  every  motion  seems  informed  with 
the  perfect  suavity  and  spontaneity  of  pure  nature. 
Tliey  tinkle  down  the  air  like  sunset  bells,  they 
float  like  clouds,  they  wave  like  flowers,  they  twit- 
ter like  skylarks,  they  have  in  them  something 
of  the   swiftness   and   the   certainty   of  exquisite 


82  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

physical  sensations.  In  such  a  transcript  as  Sir 
Theodore's  all  this  is  lost :  Heine  becomes  a  mere 
prentice-metrist ;  he  sets  the  teeth  on  edge  as  surely 
as  Browning  himself;  the  verse  that  recalled  a 
dance  of  naiads  suggests  a  springless  cart  on  a 
Iligliland  road ;  Terpsichore  is  made  to  prance  a 
hobnailed  breakdown.  The  poem  disappears,  and 
in  its  place  you  have  an  indifferent  copy  of  verses. 
You  look  at  the  pages  from  afar,  and  your  impres- 
sion is  that  they  are  not  unlike  Heine ;  you  look 
into  them,  and  Heine  has  vanished.  The  man  is 
gone,  and  only  an  awkward,  angular,  clumsily  arti- 
culated, entirely  preposterous  lay-figure  remains  to 
show  that  the  ti'auslatur  has  beea  by. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

In  every  page  of  Arnold  the  poet  there  is  some- 
thing to  return  upon  an^^  to  admire.  There  are 
faults^  and  these  of  a  kind  this  present 
age  is  ill-disposed  to  condone.  The  His  Verse 
rhymes  are  sometimes  poor ;  the  move- 
ment of  the  verse  is  sometimes  uncertain  and 
sometimes  slow ;  the  rhythms  are  obviously 
simple  always  ;  now  and  then  the  intention  and 
effect  are  cold  even  to  austerity,  are  bald  to  un- 
comeliness.  But  then,  how  many  of  the  rarer 
qualities  of  art  and  inspiration  are  represented 
here,  and  here  alone  in  modern  work  !  There  is 
little  of  that  delight  in  material  for  material's 
sake  which  is  held  to  be  essential  to  the  com- 
position of  a  great  artist ;  there  is  none  of  that 
rapture  of  sound  and  motion  and  none  of  that 
efflorescence  of  expression  which  are  deemed  insepar- 
able from  the  endowment  of  the  true  singer.  For 
any  of  those  excesses  in  technical  accomplishmentj 
those  ecstasies  in  the  use  of  words,  those  effects  of 
sound  which  are  so  rich  and  strange  as  to  impress 
the  hearer  with  something  of  their  author's  own 
emotion  of  creation — for  any,  indeed,  of  the  char- 
acteristic attributes  of  modern   poetry — you  shall 


84  VIEWS  .\ND  REVIEWS 

turn  to  him  in  vain.  In  matters  of  form  this  poet  is 
no  romantic  but  a  classic  to  the  marrow.  He  adores 
his  Shakespeare,  but  he  will  none  of  his  Shake- 
speare's fashions.  For  him  the  essentials  are  dignity 
of  thought  and  sentiment  and  distinction  of  manner 
and  utterance.  It  is  no  aim  of  his  to  talk  for 
talking's  sake,  to  express  what  is  but  half  felt 
and  half  understood,  to  embody  vague  emotions 
and  nebulous  fancies  in  language  no  amount  of  rich- 
ness can  redeem  from  the  reproach  of  being  nebulous 
and  vague.  In  his  scheme  of  art  there  is  no 
place  for  excess,  however  magnificent  and  Sliake- 
spearean — for  exuberance,  however  overpowering 
and  Hugoesque.  Human  and  interesting  in  them- 
selves, the  ideas  apparelled  in  liis  verse  are  completely 
a])prehended  ;  natural  in  themselves,  the  experi- 
ences he  pictures  are  intimately  felt  and  thorouglily 
perceived.  They  have  been  resolved  into  their 
elements  by  tlie  ojieration  of  an  almost  Sophocleau 
faculty  of  selection,  and  the  effect  of  their  presenta- 
tion is  akin  to  that  of  a  gallery  of  Greek  marbles. 

Other  poets  say  anything — say  everything  that  is 
in  them.     Browning  lived  to  realise  the  myth  of  the 

Inexhaustible  Bottle ;  Mr.  William 
His  Failure     Morris  is  nothing  it  not  fluent  and 

copious;  Mr.  Swinburne  has  a  facility 
that  would  seem  impossible  if  it  were  not  a  living 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD  85 

fact;  even  the  Laureate  is  sometimes  prodigal  of 
unimportant  details,  of  touches  insignificant  and 
superfluous,  of  words  for  words'  sake,  of  cadences 
that  have  no  reason  of  being  save  themselves.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  alone  says  only  what  is  worth  saying. 
In  other  words,  he  selects  :  from  his  matter  what- 
ever is  impertinent  is  eliminated  and  only  what 
is  vital  is  permitted  to  remain.  Sometimes  he  goes 
a  little  astray,  and  his  application  of  the  principle 
on  which  Sophocles  and  Homer  wrought  results  in 
failure.  But  in  these  instances  it  will  always  be 
found,  I  think,  that  the  eiFect  is  due  not  to  the 
principle  nor  the  poet's  application  of  it  but  to  the 
poet  himself,  who  has  exceeded  his  commission, 
and  attempted  more  than  is  in  him  to  accomplish. 
The  case  is  rare  with  Arnold,  one  of  whose  quali- 
ties— and  by  no  means  the  least  Hellenic  of 
them — was  a  fine  consciousness  of  his  limitations. 
But  that  he  failed,  and  failed  considerably,  it 
were  idle  to  deny.  There  is  Merope  to  bear 
witness  to  the  fact ;  and  of  Merope  what  is  there 
to  say  }  Evidently  it  is  an  imitation  Greek  play : 
an  essay,  that  is,  in  a  form  which  ceased  long 
since  to  have  any  active  life,  so  that  the  attempt 
to  revive  it — to  create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of 
very  musty  death — is  a  blunder  alike  in  senti- 
ment and  in  art.  As  evidently  Arnold  is  no 
dramatist.  Empedocles,  the  Strayed  Reveller, 
even  the  Forsaken  Merman,  all  these  are  ex- 
pressions of  purely  personal  feeling — are  so  many 


86  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

metamorphoses  of  Arnold.  In  Meropc  there  ia 
no  such  basis  of  reality.  The  poet  was  never  on 
a  level  with  his  argument.  He  knew  little  or 
nothing  of  his  characters — of  Merope  or  iEpytus 
or  Polyphontes,  of  Areas  or  Laias  or  even  the 
Messenger  ;  at  every  step  the  ground  is  seen  shift- 
ing under  his  feet ;  he  is  comparatively  void  of 
matter,  and  his  application  of  the  famous  principle 
is  labour  lost.  He  is  winnowing  the  wind ;  he  is 
washing  not  gold  but  water. 


It  is  other-guess  work  with  Empedocles,  the  Dejan 
eira  fragment,  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  the  Philomela,  his 

better  work  in  general,  above  all  with 
His 
_  ,       the  unique  and  unapproached  Balder 

Triumphs  '  ,  .   ,  ,     , 

Dead.    To  me  this  last  stands  alone  in 

modern  art  for  simple  majesty  of  conception,  sober 
directness  and  potency  of  expression,  sustained  dig- 
nity of  thought  and  sentiment  and  style,  the  com- 
plete presentation  of  whatever  is  essential,  the 
stern  avoidance  of  whatever  is  merely  decorative  . 
indeed  for  every  Homeric  quality  save  rhythmical 
vitality  and  rapidity  of  movement.  Here,  foi 
example,  is  something  of  that  choice  yet  ample 
suggestiveness — the  only  true  realism  because  the 
only  perfect   ideal   of  realisation — for   which   the 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD  87 

similitudes  of  the  '  Ionian  father  of  his  race '  are 
pre-eminently  distinguished : — 

'  And  as  a  spray  of  honeysuckle  flowers 
Brushes  across  a  tired  traveller's  face 
Who  shuffles  through  the  deep  dew-moistened  dost 
On  a  May  evening,  in  the  darken'd  lanes, 
And  starts  him,  that  he  thinks  a  ghost  went  by — 
So  Hoder  brushed  by  Hermod's  side.' 

Here  is  Homer's  direct  and  moving  because  most 
human  and  comprehensive  touch  in  narrative  : — 

'  But  from  the  hill  of  Lidskialf  Odin  rose, 
The  throne,  from  which  his  eye  surveys  the  world ; 
And  mounted  Sleipner,  and  in  darkness  rode 
To  Asgard.     And  the  stars  came  out  in  heaven. 
High  over  Asgard,  to  light  home  the  king. 
But  fiercely  Odin  gallop'd,  moved  in  heart; 
And  swift  to  Asgard,  to  the  gate,  he  came. 
And  terribly  the  hoofs  of  Sleipner  rang 
Along  the  flinty  floor  of  Asgard  streets, 
And  the  Gods  trembled  on  their  golden  beds 
Hearing  the  wrathful  Father  coming  home — 
For  dread,  for  like  a  whirlwind  Odin  came. 
And  to  Valhalla's  gate  he  rode,  and  left 
Sleipner ;  and  Sleipner  went  to  his  own  stall ; 
And  in  Valhalla  Odin  laid  him  down.' 

And  here — to  have  done  with  evidence  of  what  is 
known  to  every  one — here  is  the  Homeric  manner, 
large  and  majestic  and  impersonal,  of  recording 
speech : — 

'  Bethink  ye,  Gods,  is  there  no  other  way  ? — 
Speak,  were  not  this  a  way,  a  way  for  Gods? 
If  I,  if  Odin,  clad  in  radiant  arms. 
Mounted  on  Sleipner,  with  the  warrior  Thor 
Drawn  in  his  car  beside  me,  and  my  sons. 
All  the  strong  brood  of  Heaven,  to  swell  my  train. 
Should  make  irruption  into  Hela's  realm. 
And  set  the  fields  of  gloom  ablaze  with  light. 
And  bring  in  triumph  Balder  back  to  Heaven  I ' 


88  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

One  has  but  to  contrast  such  living  work  as  this 
with  the  '  mouldering  realm '  of  Merope  to  feel  the 
difference  with  a  sense  of  pain  ; 

'  For  doleful  are  the  ghosts,  the  troops  of  dead. 
Whom  Hela  with  austere  control  presides ' ; 

while  this  in  its  plain,  heroic  completeness  is  touched 
with  a  stately  life  that  is  a  presage  of  immortality. 
It  is  evident,  indeed,  that  Arnold  wrote  Balder 
Dead  in  his  most  fortunate  hour,  and  that  Merope 
is  his  one  serious  mistake  in  literature.  For  a 
genius  thus  peculiar  and  introspective  drama — the 
presentation  of  character  through  action — is  im- 
possible ;  to  a  method  thus  reticent  and  severe 
drama — the  expression  of  emotion  in  action — is 
improper.  '  Not  here,  O  Apollo  ! '  It  is  written 
that  none  shall  bind  his  brows  with  the  twin 
laurels  of  epos  and  drama.  Shakespeare  did 
not,  nor  could  Homer ;  and  how  should  Matthew 
Arnold .'' 


He  has  opinions  and  the  courage  of  them  ;  he 
has  assurance  and  he  has  charm  ;  he  writes  witli  an 

engaging  clearness.  It  is  very  possible 
Jlis  Prose       to  disagree  with  him  ;  but  it  is  difficult 

indeed  to  resist  his  many  graces  of 
manner,  and  decline  to  be  entertained  and  even 
interested    by    the    variety    and    quality    of    hia 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD  89 

matter.  He  was  described  as  "^the  most  un-Enc^Hsh 
of  Britons^'  the  most  cosmopolitan  of  islanders  ; 
and  you  feel  as  you  read  him  that  in  truth  his  mind 
was  French.  He  took  pattern  by  Goethe,  and  was 
impressed  by  Leopardi  ;  he  was  judiciously  classic, 
but  his  romanticism  was  neither  hidebound  nor 
inhuman ;  he  apprehended  Heine  and  Marcus 
Aurelius,  Spinoza  and  Sainte-Beuve,  Joubert  and 
Maurice  de  Gue'rin,  Wordsworth  and  Pascal, 
Rachel  and  Sarah  Bernhardt,  Burke  and  Arthur 
Clough,  Eliza  Cook  and  Homer  ;  he  was  an  autho- 
rity on  education,  poetry,  civilisation,  the  Song  of 
Eoland,  the  love-letters  of  Keats,  the  Genius  of 
Bottles,  the  significance  of  eutrapelos  and  eutrapelia. 
In  fact,  we  have  every  reason  to  be  proud  of  him. 
For  the  present  is  a  noisy  and  affected  age ;  it  is 
given  overmuch  to  clamorous  devotion  and  extra- 
vagant repudiation  ;  there  is  an  element  of  swagger 
in  all  its  words  and  ways  ;  it  has  a  distressing  and 
immoral  turn  for  publicity.  Matthew  Arnold's 
function  was  to  protest  against  its  fashions  by  his 
own  intellectual  practice,  and  now  and  then  to 
take  it  to  task  and  to  call  it  to  order.  He  was  not 
pai-ticularly  original,  but  he  had  in  an  eminent 
degree  the  formative  capacity,  the  genius  of 
shaping  and  developing,  which  is  a  chief  quality 
of  the  French  mind  and  which  is  not  so  common 
among  us  English  as  our  kindest  critics  would 
have  us  believe.  He  would  take  a  handful  of  golden 
sentences — things  wisely  thought  and  finely  said 


«0  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

by  persons  having  authority — and  spin  them  intd 
an  exquisite  prelection ;  so  that  his  work  with  all 
the  finisli  of  art  retains  a  something  of  the  fresh- 
ness of  those  elemental  truths  on  which  it  was  his 
humour  to  dilate.  He  was,  that  is  to  say,  an 
artist  in  ethics  as  in  speech,  in  culture  as  in 
ambition.  '  II  est  donne,'  says  Sainte-Beuve,  '  de 
'  nos  jours,  a  un  bien  petit  nombre,  meme  parmi 

*  les  plus  delicats  et  ceux  qui  les  appre'cieut  le 
'  mieux,  de  recueillir,  d'ordonner  sa  vie  selon  ses 

*  admirations  et  selon  ses  gouts,  avec  suite,  avec 
'  noblesse.'  That  is  true  enough;  but  Arnold 
was  one  of  the  /ew,  and  might  *  se  vanter  d'etre 
'  reste  fidele  a  soi-meme,  a  son  premier  et  a  son 

*  plus  beau  passe.'  He  was  always  a  man  of 
culture  in  the  good  sense  of  the  word ;  he  had 
many  interests  in  life  and  art,  and  his  interests 
were  sound  and  liberal ;  he  was  a  good  critic  of 
both  morals  and  measures,  both  of  society  and  of 
literature,  because  he  was  commonly  at  the  pains  of 
understanding  his  matter  before  he  began  to  speak 
about  it.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that 
the  part  he  played  was  one  of  considerable  im- 
portance or  that  his  influence  was  healthy  in  the 
main.  He  was  neither  prophet  nor  pedagogue  but 
a  critic  pure  and  simple.  Too  well  read  to  be 
violent,  too  nice  in  his  discernment  to  be  led 
astray  beyond  recovery  in  any  quest  after  strange 
gods,  he  told  the  age  its  faults  and  suggested 
such  remedies  as  the  study  of  great  men's  work 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD  91 

had  suggested  to  him.  If  his  effect  was  little  that 
was  not  his  fault.  He  returned  to  the  charge  with 
imperturbable  good  temper,  and  repeated  his  re- 
marks— which  are  often  exasperating  in  effect — 
with  a  mixture  of  mischievousness  and  charm,  of 
superciliousness  and  sagacity,  and  a  serene  dexterity 
of  phrase,  unique  in  modern  letters. 


HOMER  AND  THEOCRITUS 

I  THINK  that  of  all  recent  books  the  two  that 
have  pleased  me  best  and  longest  are  those  delight- 
ful renderings  into  English  prose  of 
The  Odyssey  the  Greek  of  Homer  and  Theocritus, 
which  we  owe,  the  one  to  Messrs. 
Henry  Butcher  and  Andrew  Lang  and  the  other 
to  Mr.  Lang's  unaided  genius.  To  read  this 
Odyssey  of  theirs  is  to  have  a  breath  of  the  clear, 
serene  airs  that  blew  through  the  anticjue  Hellas  ; 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  large,  new  morning  light 
that  bathes  the  seas  and  highlands  of  the  young 
heroic  world.  In  a  space  of  shining  and  fragrant 
clarity  you  have  a  vision  of  marble  columns  and 
stately  cities,  of  men  august  in  single-hearted- 
ness and  strength  and  women  comely  and  simple 
and  superb  as  goddesses ;  and  with  a  music  of 
leaves  and  winds  and  waters,  of  plunging  ships 
and  clanging  armours,  of  girls  at  song  and  kindly 
gods  discoursing,  the  sunny-eyed  heroic  age  is  re- 
vealed in  all  its  nobleness,  in  all  its  majesty,  its 
candour,  and  its  charm.  The  air  is  yet  plangent 
with  echoes  of  the  leaguer  of  Troy,  and  Odysseus 
the  ready-at-need  goes  forth  upon  his  wanderings  : 
into  the  cave  of  Polypheme,  into  the  land  of  giants. 


HOMER  AND  THEOCRITUS  93 

into  the  very  regions  of  the  dead  :  to  hear  among 
the  olive  trees  the  voice  of  Circe,  the  sweet  witch, 
singing  her  magic  song  as  she  fares  to  and  fro 
before  her  golden  loom  ;  to  rest  and  pine  in  the 
islet  of  Calypso,  the  kind  sea-goddess ;  to  meet 
with  Nausicaa,  loveliest  of  mortal  maids  ;  to  reach 
his  Ithaca,  and  do  battle  with  the  Wooers,  and  age  in 
peace  and  honour  by  the  side  of  the  wise  Penelope. 
The  day  is  yet  afar  when,  as  he  sailed  out  to  the 
sunset  and  the  mysterious  west, 

Sol  con  un  legno,  e  con  quella  compagna 
Picciola,  dalla  qual  Don  fue  deserto, 

the  great  wind  rushed  upon  him  from  the  new- 
discovered  land,  and  so  ended  his  journeyings  for 
ever ;  and  all  with  him  is  energy  and  tact  and 
valour  and  resource,  as  becomes  the  captain  of  an 
indomitable  human  soul.  His  society  is  like  old 
d'Artagnan's  :  it  invigorates,  renews,  inspires.  I 
had  rather  lack  the  friendship  of  the  good  Alonso 
Quijada  himself  than  the  brave  example  of  these 
two. 


With  certain  diflferences  it  is  the  same  with  our 

Theocritus.       From  him,  too,  the  mind  is  borne 

back  to  a    'happier    age    of   gold,*      _,     ^,  ^ 
'  ^  The  IdyUs 

when  the  world  was  younger  than 

now,  and  men  were  not  so  weary  nor  so  jaded 

nor  so    highly  civilised  as   they  choose  to  think 


94  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

themselues.  Shepherds  still  piped,  and  maidens 
still  listened  to  their  piping.  The  old  gods 
had  not  been  discrowned  and  banished ;  and  to 
fishers  drawing  their  nets  the  coasts  yet  kept  a 
something  of  the  trace  of  amorous  Polypheme,  the 
rocks  were  peopled  with  memories  of  his  plaint  to 
Galatea.  Inland,  among  the  dim  and  thymy  woods, 
bee-haunted  and  populous  with  dreams  of  dryad 
and  oread,  there  were  rumours  of  Pan;  and 
dwellers  under  thatch — the  goatherd  mending  his 
sandals,  the  hind  carving  his  new  staff,  the  girls 
who  busked  them  for  the  vintaging — were  con- 
scious, as  the  wind  went  by  among  the  beeches 
and  the  pines,  and  brought  with  it  the  sounds  of 
a  lonely  and  mysterious  night,  that  hard  by  them 
in  the  starry  darkness  the  divine  Huntress  was 
abroad,  and  about  the  base  of  iEtna  she  and  her 
forest  maids  drove  the  chase  with  horn  and  hound. 
In  the  cities  ladies  sang  the  psalm  of  Adonis 
brought  back  from  *  the  stream  eternal  of  Acheron.' 
Under  the  mystic  moon  love-lorn  damsels  did  their 
magic  rites,  and  knit  up  spells  of  power  to  bring 
home  the  men  they  loved.  Among  the  vines  and 
under  the  grey  olives  songs  were  singing  of  Daphnis 
all  day  long.  There  were  junketings  and  dancings 
and  harvest-homes  for  ever  toward  ;  the  youths 
went  by  to  the  gymnasium,  and  the  girls  stood 
near  to  watcli  them  as  they  went ;  the  cicalas  sang, 
the  air  was  fragrant  with  aj)ples  and  musical  with 
the   sound   of  flutes   and    running   water ;    while 


HOMER  AND  THEOCRITUS  95 

the  blue  Sicilian  sky  laup^hed  over  all^  anrl  the 
soft  Sicilian  sea  encircled  the  land  and  its  lovers 
with  a  ring  of  sapphire  and  silver.  To  translate 
Theocritus,  wrote  Sainte-Beuve,  is  as  if  one 
sought  to  carry  away  in  one's  hand  a  patch  of 
snow  that  has  lain  forgotten  through  the  summer 
in  a  cranny  of  the  rocks  of  iEtna  : — '  On  a  fait  trois 
pas  a  peine,  que  cette  neige  deja  est  fondue.  On 
est  heureux  s'il  en  reste  assez  du  moins  pour  donner 
le  vif  sentiment  de  la  fraicheur.'  But  Mr.  Lang 
has  so  rendered  into  English  the  graces  of  the 
loveliest  of  Dorian  singers  that  he  has  earned 
the  thanks  of  every  lover  of  true  literature. 
Every  one  should  read  his  book,  for  it  will 
bring  him  face  to  face  with  a  very  prince  among 
poets  and  with  a  very  summer  among  centuries. 
That  Theocritus  was  a  rare  and  beautiful  master 
there  is  even  in  this  English  transcript  an  abun- 
dance of  evidence.  Melancholy  apart,  he  was  the 
VV^atteau  of  the  old  Greek  world — an  exquisite 
artist,  a  rare  poet,  a  true  and  kindly  soul  ;  and  it  is 
very  good  to  be  with  him.  We  have  changed  it  all 
of  course,  and  are  as  fortunate  as  we  can  expect. 
But  it  is  good  to  be  with  Theocritus,  for  he  lets  you 
live  awhile  in  the  happy  age  and  under  the  happy 
heaven  that  were  his.  He  gives  you  leave  and 
opportunity  to  listen  to  the  tuneful  strife  of  Lacon 
and  Comatas;  to  witness  the  duel  in  song  between 
Corydon  and  Battus ;  to  talk  of  Galatea  pelting 
with  apples  the  barking  dog  of  her  love-lorn  Poly- 


96  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

pheme  ;  under  the  whispering  elms,  to  lie  drinkingf 
with  Eucritus  and  Lycidas  by  the  altar  of  Demeter, 

*  while   she  stjinds  smiling  by,  with  sheaves  and 

*  poppies  in  her  hand.' 


It  is  relief  unspeakable  to  turn  from  the  dust 
and  din  and  chatter  of  modern  life,  with  its  growing 

trade   in   heroes  and   its   poverty  of 

Old  Lamps  -^      •  1 1  ^  j 

.  ,^  men,    its    innumerable    regrets    and, 

and  New  ,    .  ,  ,    .  ,  .    . 

ambitions  and  desires,  to  this  immense 

tranquillity,  this  candid  and  shining  calm.  They 
had  no  Irish  Question  then,  you  can  reflect,  nor 
was  theology  invented.  I\Ien  were  not  afraid  of 
life  nor  ashamed  of  death ;  and  you  could  be  heroic 
without  a  dread  of  clever  editors,  and  hospitable 
without  fear  of  rogues,  and  dutiful  for  no  hope  of 
illuminated  scrolls,  Odysseus  disguised  as  Irus 
is  still  Odysseus  and  august.  How  comes  it  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  in  rags  and  singing  ballads  would 
be  only  fit  for  a  police-station  ?  that  Lord  Salisbury 
hawking  cocoa-nuts  would  instantly  suggest  the 
jiurlieus  of  Petticoat  Lane.''  Is  the  fault  in  our- 
selves.'' Can  it  be  that  we  have  deteriorated  so 
much  as  that.''  Nerves,  nerves,  nerves  !  .  .  . 
These  many  centuries  the  world  has  had  neuralgia ; 
and  what  has  come  of  it  is  that  Robert  Elsmere  is 
an  ideal,  and  the  bleat  of  the  sentimentalist  might 
almost  be  mistaken  for  the  voice  of  living  England. 


RABELAIS 

Rabelais  is  not  precisely  a  book  for  bachelors 
and  maids — at  times,  indeed,  is  not  a  book  for 
grown  men.  There  are  passages  not 
to  be  read  without  a  blush  and  a  sen-  His  Essence 
sation  of  sickness :  the  young  giant 
which  is  the  Renaissance  being  filthy  and  gross  as 
nature  herself  at  her  grossest  and  her  most  filthy. 
It  is  argued  that  this  is  all  deliberate — is  an  effect 
of  premeditation  :  that  Rabelais  had  certain  home- 
truths  to  deliver  to  his  generation,  and  delivered 
them  in  such  terms  as  kept  him  from  the  fagot 
and  the  rope  by  bedaubing  him  with  the  renown 
of  a  common  buffoon.  But  the  argument  is  none 
of  the  soundest  in  itself,  and  may  fairly  be  set 
aside  as  a  piece  of  desperate  special  pleading,  the 
work  of  counsel  at  their  wits'  end  for  matter  of 
defence.  For  Rabelais  clean  is  not  Rabelais  at 
all.  His  grossness  is  an  essential  coinjudient  in 
his  mental  fabric,  an  element  in  whose  absence  he 
would  be  not  Rabelais  but  somebody  else.  It  in- 
spires his  practice  of  art  to  the  full  as  thoroughly 
as  it  informs  his  theory  of  language.  He  not 
only  employs  it  wherever  it  might  be  useful : 
he  goes  out  of  his  way  to  find  it,  he  shovels  it 
o 


98  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

in  on  any  and  every  occasion,  he  bemerds  his 
readers  and  himself  with  a  gusto  that  assuredly  is 
not  a  common  characteristic  of  defensive  opera- 
tions. In  him,  indeed,  the  humour  of  Old  France 
• — the  broad,  rank,  unsavoury  esprit  gaulois — 
found  its  heroic  expression ;  he  made  use  of  it 
because  he  must ;  and  we  can  no  more  eliminate 
it  from  his  work  than  we  can  remove  the  quality 
of  imagination  from  Shakespeare's  or  those  of 
art  and  intellect  from  Ben  Jonson's.  Other  men 
are  as  foul  or  fouler ;  but  in  none  is  foulness 
so  inbred  and  so  ingrained,  from  none  is  it  so 
inseparable.  Few  have  had  so  much  genius,  and  in 
none  else  has  genius  been  so  curiously  featured. 


It  is  significant  enough  that  with  all  this 
against  him  he  sliould  have  been  from  the  first 
a  great  moral  and  literary  influence 
His  Secret  and  the  delight  of  the  wisest  and 
soundest  minds  the  world  has  soon. 
Shakespeare  read  him,  and  Jonson  ;  Montaigne, 
a  greater  than  himself,  is  in  some  sort  his 
descendant ;  Swift,  in  Coleridge's  enlightening 
phrase,  is  '  anima  Rabelaesii  habitans  in  sicco ' ; 
to  Sterne  and  Balzac  and  Moliere  he  was  a 
constant  inspiration  ;  unto  this  day  his  work   is 


RABELAIS  99 

studied  and  his  meanings  are  sought  with  almost 
religious  devoutness ;  while  his  phrases  have 
passed  into  the  constitution  of  a  dozen  languages, 
and  the  great  figures  he  scrawled  across  the  face 
of  the  Renaissance  have  survived  the  movement 
that  gave  them  heing,  and  are  ranked  with  the 
monuments  of  literature.  Himself  has  given  us 
the  reasons  in  the  prologue  to  the  first  book, 
where  he  tells  of  the  likeness  between  Socrates 
and  the  boxes  called  Sileni,  and  discourses  of 
the  manifest  resemblance  of  his  own  work  with 
Socrates.  '  Opening  this  box/  which  is  Socrates, 
says  he,  'you  would  have  found  within  it  a 
'  heavenly  and  inestimable  drug,  a  more  than 
'  human    unders.tanding,     an    admirable    virtue, 

*  matchless   learning,    invincible  courage,  inimit- 

*  able    sobriety,    certain    contentment    of   mind, 

*  perfect  assurance,  and  an  incredible  disregard  of 
'  all  that  for  which  men  cunningly  do  so  much 

*  watch,  run,  sail,  fight,  travel,  toil,  and  turmoil 

*  themselves.'  In  such  wise  must  his  book  be 
opened,  and  the  '  high  conceptions  '  with  which  it 
is  stuffed  will  presently  be  apparent.  Nay,  more  : 
you  are  to  do  with  it  even  as  a  dog  with  a  marrow- 
bone. *If  you  have  seen  him  you  might  have 
'  remarked  with  what  devotion  and  circumspection 
'  he  watches   and   wards  it ;    with   what  care   he 

*  keeps  it ;  how  fervently  he  holds  it ;  how 
'  prudently  he  gobbets  it ;  with  what  affection  he 

*  breaks   it;  with    what    diligence   he    sucks    it' 


100  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

And  in  the  same  way  you  '  by  a  sedulous  lecture 
*  and  frequent  meditation '  shall  break  the  bono 
and  suck  out  the  marrow  of  these  books.  Since 
the  advice  was  proflPered,  generation  after  genera- 
tion of  mighty  wits  have  taken  counsel  with  the 
Master,  and  his  wisdom  has  through  them  been 
passed  out  into  the  practice  of  life,  the  evolu- 
tion of  society,  the  development  of  humanity. 
But  the  'prince  de  toute  sapience  et  de  toute 
'come'die'has  not  yet  uttered  his  last  word.  He 
remains  in  the  front  of  time  as  when  he  lived  and 
wrote.  The  Abbey  of  Thelema  and  the  education 
of  Gargantua  are  still  unrealised  ideals ;  the 
Ringing  Isle  and  the  Isle  of  Papimany  are  in 
their  essentials  pretty  much  as  he  left  them ; 
Panurge,  '  the  pollarded  man,  the  man  with  every 
'  faculty  except  the  reason,'  has  bettered  no  whit 
for  the  three  centuries  of  improvement  that  have 
passed  since  he  was  flashed  into  being.  We — even 
we — have  much  to  learn  from  Master  Alcofribas, 
and  until  we  have  learned  it  well  enough  to  put 
it  into  practice  his  work  remains  half  done  and 
his  book  still  one  to  study. 


SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  and  Rembrandt  have  in  common 
the  faculty  of  quickening  speculation  and  com- 
pelling the  minds  of  men  to  combat 

and  discussion.       About  the  English      „       „  , 

°  Parallel 

poet   a   literature   of  contention   has 

been  in  process  of  accretion  ever  since  he  was  dis- 
covered to  be  Shakespeare ;  and  about  the  Dutch 
painter  and  etcher  there  has  gradually  accumulated 
a  literature  precisely  analogous  in  character  and 
for  the  most  part  of  equal  quality.  In  such  an  age 
as  this,  when  the  creative  faculty  of  the  world  is 
mainly  occupied  with  commentary  and  criticism, 
the  reason  should  not  be  far  to  seek.  Both  were 
giants  ;  both  were  original  and  individual  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  words ;  both  were  leagues 
ahead  of  their  contemporaries,  not  merely  as 
regards  the  matter  of  their  message  but  also  in 
respect  of  the  terms  of  its  delivery ;  each,  more- 
over— and  here  one  comes  upon  a  capital  point  of 
contact  and  resemblance — each  was  at  times  pro- 
digiously inferior  to  himself.  Shakespeare  often 
writes  so  ill  that  you  hesitate  to  believe  he  could 
ever  write  supremely  well ;  or,  if  this  way  of 
putting  it  seem  indecorous  and  abominable,  lie  very 


102  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

often  writes  so  well  that  you  are  loth  to  believe 
he  could  ever  have  written  thus  extremely  ill. 
There  are  passages  in  his  work  in  which  he  reaches 
such  heights  of  literary  art  as  since  his  time 
no  moi-tal  has  found  accessible ;  and  there  are 
passages  which  few  or  none  of  us  can  read  with- 
out a  touch  of  that  '  burning  sense  of  shame ' 
experienced  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Poynter's 
Diadumenc  by  the  British  Matron  of  The  Times 
newspaper.  Now,  we  have  got  to  be  so  curious 
in  ideals  that  we  cannot  away  with  the  thought 
of  imperfection.  Our  worship  must  have  for  its 
object  something  flawless,  something  utterly  with- 
out spot  or  blemish.  We  can  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  an  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite  ; 
and  we  cannot  taste  our  Shakespeare  at  his  worst 
without  experiencing  not  merely  the  burning  sense 
of  shame  aforesaid  but  also  a  frenzy  of  longing  to 
father  his  faults  upon  somebody  else — Marlowe  for 
instance,  or  Green,  or  Fletcher — and  a  fury  of 
proving  tliat  our  divinity  was  absolutely  incapable  of 
them.  That  Shakespeare  varied — that  the  match- 
less prose  and  the  not  particularly  lordly  verse  of 
As  You  Like  It  are  by  the  same  hand  ;  that  the 
master  to  whom  we  owe  our  Hamlet  is  also  re- 
sponsible for  Gertrude  and  King  Claudius ;  that 
he  who  gave  us  the  agony  of  Lear  and  the  ruin 
of  Othello  did  likewise  perpetrate  the  scene  of 
Hector's  murder,  in  manner  so  poor  and  in  spirit  so 
cynical  and  vile — is  beyond  all  belief  and  patience; 


SHAKESPEARE  103 

and  we  have  argued  the  point  to  such  an  extent 
that  we  are  all  of  us  in  Gotham,  and  a  mooncalf 
like  the  ascription  of  whatever  is  good  in  Shake- 
speare to  Lord  Bacon  is  no  prodigy  but  a  natural 
birth. 


SIDNEY 

Sldney's  prime  faults  are  affectation  and  con- 
ceit.       His    verses    drip    with    fine    love-honey ; 
but  it  has  been  so  clarified  in  met;i- 

'  J  ^      physics  that  much  of  its  flavour  and 
sion  of  Life         '  .  a      ^r  e^ 

sweetness  has  escaped.      Very  often, 

too,  the  conceit  embodied  is  preposterously  poor. 
You  have  as  it  were  a  casket  of  finest  gold  elabo- 
rately wrought  and  embellished,  and  the  gem 
within  is  a  mere  spangle  of  paste,  a  trumpery 
spikelet  of  crystal.  No  doubt  there  is  a  man's 
heart  beating  underneath  ;  but  so  thick  is  the 
envelope  of  buckram  and  broidery  and  velvet 
through  which  it  has  to  make  itself  audible  thut 
its  pulsations  are  sometimes  hard  to  count,  wliile 
to  follow  it  throb  by  throb  is  impossible.  And  if 
this  be  true  of  that  Astrophel  and  Stella  series 
in  which  the  poet  outpours  the  melodious  hey- 
day of  his  youth — in  which  he  strives  to  embody 
a  passion  as  rich  and  full  as  ever  stirred  man's 
blood — what  shall  be  said  of  the  Arcadia}  In 
that  '  cold  pastoral  *  he  is  trying  to  give  breath 
and  substance  to  as  thin  and  frigid  a  fashion  as 
has  ever  afflicted  literature;  and  though  he  put 
a  great  deal  of  himself  into  the  result,  still  every 
one  has  not  the  true  critical  insight,  and  to  most 


SIDNEY  105 

of  us,  I  think,  those  glimpses  of  the  lofty  nature  of 
the  writer  which  make  the  thing  written  a  thing  of 
wortli  in  the  eyes  of  the  few  are  merely  invisible. 

In  tliinking  of  Sidney,  Ophelia's  lament  for 
Hamlet  springs  to  the  lips,  and  the  heart  reverts 
to  that  closing  scene  at  Zutpheu  with 
a  bleased  sadness  of  admiration  and  His  Fume 
regret.  But  frankly,  is  it  nut  a  fact 
that  tliat  fine  last  sjjeech  of  his  has  more  availed  to 
secure  him  immortality  than  all  his  verse?  Tiiey 
call  him  the  Englisli  Bayard,  and  the  French- 
man need  not  be  displeasured  by  the  comparison. 
But  when  you  come  to  read  his  poetry  you  find 
that  our  Bayard  had  in  him  a  strong  dash  of  the 
pedant  and  a  powerful  leaven  of  the  euphuist. 
Subtle,  delicate,  refined,  with  a  keen  and  curious 
wit,  a  rare  faculty  of  verse,  a  singular  capacity  ot 
expression,  an  active  but  not  always  a  true  sense  of 
form,  he  wrote  for  the  few,  and  (it  may  be)  the  few 
will  always  love  him.  But  his  intellectual  life, 
intense  though  it  were,  was  lived  among  sliadows 
and  abstractions.  He  thought  deeply,  but  he 
neither  looked  widely  nor  listened  intently,  and 
when  all  is  said  he  remains  no  more  than  a  brilliant 
amorist,  too  super-subtle  for  conij)lote  sincerity, 
whose  fluency  and  sweetness  have  not  improved 
with  years. 


TOURNEUR 

ToiTRNEUR  was  a  fierce  and  bitter  spirit.  The 
words  in  which  he  unpacked  his  heart  are  vitalised 

with  passion.  He  felt  so  keenly  that 
His  Style      oftentimes  his  phrase  is  the  offspring  of 

the  emotion,  so  terse  and  vigorous  and 
apt,  so  vivid  and  so  potent  and  eager,  it  appears.  As 
an  instance  of  this  avidity  of  wrath  and  scorn  finding 
expression  in  words  the  fittest  and  most  forcible, 
leaving  the  well-known  scenes  embalmed  in  Elia's 
praise,  one  might  take  the  three  or  four  single 
words  in  which  Vindici  (The  Revenger's  Tragedy),  on 
as  many  several  occasions,  refers  to  the  caresses  of 
Spurio  and  the  wanton  Duchess.  Each  is  of  such 
amazing  propriety,  is  so  keenly  discriminated,  is 
so  obviously  the  product  of  an  imagination  burning 
with  rage  and  hate,  that  it  strikes  you  like  an 
affront :  each  is  an  incest  taken  in  the  fact  and 
branded  there  and  then.  And  this  quality  of 
verbal  fitness,  this  power  of  so  charging  a  phrase 
with  energy  and  colour  as  to  make  it  convey  the 
emotion  of  the  writer  at  the  instant  of  inspira- 
tion, is  perhaps  the  master  quality  of  Tourue-ir's 
work. 


% 


TOURNEUR  107 

TTiey  that  would  have  it  are  many ;  they  that 
achieve  their  desire  are  few.  For  in  the  minor 
artist  the  passionate — the  elemental 
quality — is  not  often  found  :  he  being  His  Matter 
of  his  essence  the  ape  or  zany  of  his 
betters.  Tourneur  is  not  a  great  tragic.  The 
Atheist's  Tragedy  is  but  grotesquely  and  extrava- 
gantly horrible ;  its  personages  are  caricatures  of 
passion  ;  its  comedy  is  inexpressibly  sordid  ;  its  in- 
cidents are  absurd  when  they  are  not  simply  abomin- 
able. But  it  is  written  in  excellent  dramatic  verse 
and  in  a  rich  and  brilliant  diction,  and  it  contains 
a  number  of  pregnant  epithets  and  ringing  lines 
and  violent  phrases.  And  if  you  halve  the  blame 
and  double  the  praise  you  will  do  something  less 
than  justice  to  that  Revenger's  Tragedy  which  is 
Tourneur's  immortality.  After  all  its  companion 
is  but  a  bastard  of  the  loud,  malignant,  antic  muse 
of  Marston ;  the  elegies  are  cold,  elaborate,  and 
very  tedious ;  the  Transformed  Metamorphosis  is 
better  verse  but  harder  reading  than  Sordello 
itself.  But  the  Revenger's  Tragedy  has  merit  as 
a  piece  of  art  and  therewith  a  rare  interest  as 
a  window  on  the  artist's  mind.  The  eifect  is  as  of 
a  volcanic  landscape.  An  earthquake  has  passed, 
and  among  grisly  shapes  and  blasted  aspects  here 
lurks  and  wanders  the  genius  of  ruin. 


WALTON 

I  AM  told   that  it  is  generally  though  silently 

admitted  that,    while   Charles   Cotton   came  of  a 

school    of    fishermen    renowned    for 
TheCompleat  ,.  ,         .  ,  . 

accomplishment  even  now,  his  master 
Angler 

and  friend   was   not   in   the  modern 

or  Cottonian  sense  a  fisherman  at  all.  There  was 
in  him,  indeed,  a  vast  deal  of  the  philosopher  and 
the  observer  of  nature  and  still  more,  perhaps,  of 
the  artist  in  English  ;  but  there  was  also  not  a 
little  of  the  cockney  sportsman.  He  never  rose 
above  the  low-lived  worm  and  quill ;  his  prey 
was  commonly  those  fish  that  are  the  scorn  of  the 
true  angler,  for  he  knew  naught  of  trout  and 
grayling,  yet  was  deeply  interested  in  such  base 
creatures  (and  such  poor  eating)  as  chub  and  roach 
and  dace ;  and  that  part  of  his  treatise  which  has 
still  a  certain  authority — which  may  be  said, 
indeed,  to  have  placed  the  mystery  of  fly-fishing 
upon  something  of  a  scientific  basis — was  not  his 
work  but  that  of  ^my  most  honoured  friend, 
*  Charles  Cotton,  Esq.'  Again,  it  is  a  character- 
istic of  your  true  as  opposed  to  your  cockney 
sportsman  tliat,  unless  constrained  tliereto  by 
hunger,  lie  does  not  eat  what  he  has  killed  ;  and 


WALTON  100 

it  is  a  characteristic  of  'Walton — who  in  this 
particular  at  least  may  stand  for  the  authentic 
type  of  the  cockney  sportsman  as  opposed  to  the 
true  one — that  he  delighted  not  much  less  in 
dining  or  supping  on  his  catch  than  he  did  in  the 
act  of  making  it :  as  witness  some  of  the  most 
charming  parts  in  a  book  that  from  one  end  to  the 
other  is  charm  and  little  besides.  Indeed  the  truth 
— (with  reverence  be  it  spoken) — appears  to  be  that 
the  Compkat  Angler  is  an  expression  in  the  tei-ms 
of  art  of  the  cit's  enjoyment  of  the  country. 


WTiat  Walton  saw  in  angling  was  not  that 
delight  in  the  consciousness  of  accomplishment 
and  intelligence  which  sends  the  true 

fisherman  to  the  river  and  keeps  him      „ 

Fiscator 
there,     rejoicing     in     his     strength, 

whether  he  kill  or  go  empty  away.  It  was  rather 
the  pretext — with  a  worm  and  perhaps  a  good 
supper  at  one  end  and  a  contemplative  man  at 
the  other — of  a  day  in  the  fields  :  where  the  sky- 
lark soared,  and  the  earth  smelled  sweet,  and  the 
water  flashed  and  tinkled  as  it  ran,  while  hard  by 
some  milk-maid,  courteous  yet  innocent,  sang  as  she 
plied  her  nimble  fingers,  and  not  very  far  away  the 
casement  of  the  inn-parlour  gloarned  comfortable 


110  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

promises  of  talk  and  food  and  rest.  That  was  the 
Master  Piscator  who,  being  an  excellent  man  of 
letters,  went  out  to  '  stretch  his  legs  up  Tottenham 

*  Hill'  in  search  of  fish,  and  came  home  with 
immortal  copy ;  and  that  was  the  Izaak  Walton 
who  '  ventured  to  fill  a  part '  of  Cotton's  '  margin ' 
with  remarks  not  upon  his  theory  of  how  to  angle 
for  trout  or  grayling  in  a  clear  stream  but  '  by  way 
'  of  paraphrase  for  your  reader's  clearer  under- 
'  standing  both   of  the  situation  of  your  fisliing 

*  house,  and  the  pleasantness  of  that  you  dwell 

*  in.'  He  had  the  purest  and  the  most  innocent 
of  minds,  he  was  the  master  of  a  style  as  bright, 
as  sweet,  as  refreshing  and  delightful,  as  fine  clean 
home-spun  some  time  in  lavender ;  he  called  him- 
self an  angler,  and  he  believed  in  the  description 
with  a  cordial  simplicity  whose  appeal  is  more 
persuasive  now  than  ever.  But  he  was  nothing 
if  not  the  citizen  afield — the  cockney  aweary  of 
Bow  Bells  and  rejoicing  in  'the  sights  and  sounds 

*  of  the  open  landscape.'  After  all  it  is  only  your 
town-bred  poet  who  knows  anything  of  the  country, 
or  is  moved  to  concern  himself  in  anywise  for  the 
sensations  and  experiences  it  yields.  Milton  was 
hoi-n  in  Bread  Street,  and  Herrick  in  Cheapside. 
Yet  Milton  gave  us  the  Allegro  and  the  Penseroso 
and  the  scenery  in  Comus  and  the  epic ;  while 
as  for  Herrick — the  Night-Piece,  the  lovely  and 
immortal  verses  To  Meadows,  the  fresh  yet  sump- 
tuous   and    noble    To    Corinna    Going    a-Maying, 


WALTON  111 

these  and  a  hundred  more  are  there  to  answer 
for  him.  Here  Walton  is  with  Herrick  and  Milton 
and  many  '  dear  sons  of  Memory '  besides ;  and 
that  is  why  he  not  only  loved  the  country  but 
was  moved  to  make  art  of  it  as  well. 


HERRICK 

In  Ilerrick  the  air  is  fragrant  with  new-mown 
hay ;  there  is  a  morning  light  upon   all  things ; 

long  shadows  streak  the  grass,  and 
His  Muse     on    the    eglantine    swinging    in    the 

hedge  the  dew  lies  white  and  brilliant. 
Out  of  the  happy  distance  comes  a  shrill  and 
silvery  sound  of  whetting  scythes ;  and  from  the 
near  brook-side  rings  the  laughter  of  merry  maids 
in  circle  to  make  cowslipballs  and  babble  of  their 
bachelors.  As  you  walk  you  are  conscious  of 
'the  grace  tliat  morning  meadows  wear/  and 
mayhap  you  meet  Amaryllis  going  home  to  the 
farm  with  an  apronful  of  flowers.  Rounded  is 
she  and  buxom,  cool-cheeked  and  vigorous  and 
trim,  smelling  of  rosemary  and  thyme,  with  an 
appetite  for  curds  and  cream  and  a  tongue  of 
*  cleanly  wantonness.'  For  her  singer  has  an  eye 
in  liis  liead,  and  exquisite  as  are  his  fancies  he 
dwells  in  no  land  of  shadows.  The  more  clearly 
he  sees  a  thing  the  better  he  sings  it;  and  pro- 
vided that  he  do  see  it  nothing  is  beneath  the 
caress  of  his  muse.  The  bays  and  rosemary  that 
wreath  the  hall  at  Yule,  the  log  itself,  the  Candle* 
mas  box,  the  hock-cart  and  the  maypole,  nay, 

'  See'st  thou  that  cloud  as  silver  clear, 
Plump,  soft,  and  swelling  everywhereT 
'J  is  Julia's  bed  ! ' — 


HERRICK  113 

And  not  only  does  he  listen  to  the  'decking '  of  his 
hen  and  know  what  it  means:  he  knows  too  that 
the  egg  she  has  laid  is  long  and  white  ;  so  that  ere 
he  enclose  it  in  his  verse,  you  can  see  him  take  it 
in  his  hand,  and  look  at  it  with  a  sort  of  boyish 
wonder  and  delight.  This  freshness  of  spirit,  this 
charming  and  innocent  curiosity,  he  carries  into 
all  he  does.  He  can  turn  a  sugared  compliment 
with  the  best,  but  when  Amaryllis  passes  him  by 
he  is  yet  so  eager  and  unsophisticate  that  he 
can  note  that  'winning  wave  in  the  tempestuous 
'petticoat'  which  has  rippled  to  such  good  pur- 
pose through  so  many  graceful  speeches  since.  So 
that  though  Julia  and  Dianeme  and  Anthea  have 
passed  away,  though  Corinna  herself  is  merely  'a 
'  fable,  song,  a  fleeting  shade,'  he  has  saved  enough 
of  them  from  the  ravin  of  Time  for  us  to  love  and 
be  grateful  for  eternally.  Their  gracious  ghosts 
abide  in  a  peculiar  nook  of  the  Elysium  of  Poesy. 
There  '  in  their  habit  as  they  lived '  they  dance 
in  round,  they  fill  their  laps  with  flowers,  they 
frolic  and  junket  sweetly,  they  go  for  ever  may- 
ing.  Soft  winds  blow  round  them,  and  in  theii 
clear  young  voices  they  sing  the  verse  of  the  rare 
artist  who  called  them  from  the  multitude  and  set 
them  for  ever  where  they  are. 


% 


i 


114  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

And  Amaryllis  herself  will  not,  mayhap,  be  found 

BO  fair  as  those  younglings  of  the  year  she  bears 

„.  ,,  ,  with  her  in  'wicker  ark'  or  'lawny 
His  Moral      ^  .  ,   rr      .  i  . 

continent.    Herrick  is  pre-eminently 

the  poet  of  flowers.     He  alone  were  capable  of 

bringing  back 

'  Le  bouquet  d'Ophelie 
De  la  rive  inconnue  ou  les  flots  I'ont  laiss^. 

He  knows  and  loves  the  dear  blossoms  all.  He 
considers  them  with  tender  and  shining  eyes,  he 
culls  them  his  sweetest  fancies  and  his  fondest 
metaphors.  Their  idea  is  inseparable  from  that  of 
his  girls  themselves,  and  it  is  by  the  means  of 
the  one  set  of  mistresses  that  he  is  able  so  well 
to  understand  the  other.  The  flowers  are  maids 
to  him,  and  the  maids  are  flowers.  In  an  ecstasy 
of  tender  contemplation  he  turns  from  those  to 
these,  exampling  Julia  from  the  rose  and  pitying 
the  hapless  violets  as  though  they  were  indeed 
not  blooms  insensitive  but  actually  '  poor  girls 
'  neglected.'  His  pages  breathe  their  clean  and 
innocent  perfumes,  and  are  beautiful  with  the 
cluiste  beauty  of  their  colour,  just  as  they  carry 
with  them  something  of  the  sweetness  and  sim- 
plicity of  maidenhood  itself.  And  from  both  lie 
extracts  the  same  patlietic  little  moral :  both  are 
lovely  and  both  must  die.  And  so,  between  his 
virgins  that  are  for  love  indeed  and  those  that  sit 
silent  and  delicious  in  the  'flowery  nunnery,'  the 
old  singer  flnds  life  so  good  a  thing  that  he  dreads 


HERRICK  116 

to  lose  it,  and  not  all  liis  piety  can  remove  the 
passionate  regret  with  which  he  sees  things  hasten- 
ing to  their  end. 


That  piety  is  equally  removed  from  the  erotic 
mysticism  of  Richard  Crashaw  and  from  the  adora- 
tion, chastened  and  awful  and  pure, 
of  Cowper.  To  find  an  analogue,  you  His  Piety 
have  to  cross  the  borders  of  English 
into  Spain.  In  his  Noble  Numbers  Herrick  shows 
himself  to  be  a  near  kinsman  of  such  men  as 
Valdivielso,  Ocana,  Lope  de  Ubeda ;  and  there 
are  versicles  of  his  that  in  their  homely  mixture 
of  the  sacred  and  the  profane,  in  their  reverent 
familiarity  with  things  divine,  their  pious  and 
simple  gallantry,  may  well  be  likened  to  the  grace- 
ful and  charming  romances  and  villancicos  of  these 
strangers.  Their  spirit  is  less  Protestant  than 
Catholic,  and  is  hardly  English  at  all,  so  that  it 
is  scarce  to  be  wondered  at  if  they  have  remained 
unpopular.  But  their  sincerity  and  earnestness 
are  as  far  beyond  doubt  as  their  grace  of  line  and 
inimitable  daintiness  of  surface. 


LOCKER 

Mr.  Locker's  verse  has  cliarmed  so  wisely  and 
so  long  that  it  has   travelled   the  full   circle   of 

compliment  and  exhausted  one  part  of 
His 
^     ,   .         the  lexicon  of  eulojjv.     As  you  turn 
qualities  f    1     "    ^     ui 

his  pages  you  leei  as  freshly  as  ever 

the  sweet,  old-world  elegance,  the  courtly  amia- 
bility, the  mannerly  restraint,  the  measured  and 
accomplished  ease.  True,  they  are  colourless, 
and  in  these  days  we  are  deboshed  with  colour  ; 
but  then  they  are  so  luminously  limpid  and 
serene,  they  are  so  sprijj^htly  and  graceful  and 
gay  !  In  the  gallantry  they  affect  there  is  a  some- 
thing at  once  exquisite  and  paternal.  If  they  pun, 
'tis  with  an  air :  even  thus  might  Chesterfield 
have  stooped  to  folly.  And  then,  how  clean  the 
English,  how  light  yet  vigorous  the  touch,  the 
manner  how  elegant  and  how  staid  !  There  is 
wit  in  them,  and  that  so  genial  and  unassuming 
that  as  like  as  not  it  gets  leave  to  beam  on  unpor- 
ceived.  There  is  humour  too,  but  humour  .so 
polite  as  to  look  half-unconscious,  so  dandilied  that 
it  leaves  you  in  doubt  as  to  whether  you  should 
laugh  or  only  smile.  And  withal  there  is  a  vein 
of  well-breJ    wisdom    never   breathed    but  to  the 


LOCKER  117 

delight  no  less  than  to  the  profit  of  the  student. 
And  for  those  of  them  that  are  touched  with 
passion,  as  in  The  Unrealized  Ideal  and  that  lovely 
odelet  to  Mabel's  pearls,  why,  these  are,  I  think, 
the  best  and  the  least  approachable  of  all. 


For  as  English  as  she  is,  indeed,  his  muse  is  not 
to  be  touched  off  save  in  French.  To  think  of 
her  is  to  reflect  that  she  is  delicate, 
spirituelle,  semillante — unefine  mouche.  His  Effect 
allez!  The  salon  has  disappeared, — 
*  Iran,  indeed,  is  gone,  and  all  his  rose ' ;  but 
she  was  born  with  the  trick  of  it.  You  make 
your  bow  to  her  in  her  Sheraton  chair,  a  buckle 
shoe  engagingly  discovered ;  and  she  rallies  you 
with  an  incomparable  ease,  a  delicate  malice,  in  a 
dialect  itself  a  distinction ;  and  when  she  smUes 
it  is  behind  or  above  a  fan  that  points  while  it 
dissembles,  that  assists  effect  as  delightfully  as 
it  veils  intention.  At  times  she  is  sensitive  and 
tender,  but  her  graver  mood  has  no  more  of 
violence  or  mawkishness  than  has  her  gallant 
roguery  (or  enchanting  archness)  of  viciousness 
or  spite.  Best  of  all,  she  is  her  poet's  very  own. 
You  may  woo  her  and  pursue  her  as  you  will ;  but 
the  end  is  invariable.  *  I  follow,  follow  still,  but  I 
shall  never  see  her  face.'  Even  as  in  her  master's 
finest  song. 


BANVILLE 

The  Muse  of  M.  de  Banville  was  born  not  naked 
but  in  the  most  elaborate  and  sumptuous  evening 

wear  that  ever  muse  put  on.  To 
His  Nature    him,  indeed,  there  is   no   nature  so 

natural  as  that  depicted  on  the  boards, 
no  humanity  half  so  human  as  the  actor  puts 
on  with  his  paint.  For  him  the  flowers  grow 
plucked  and  bound  into  nosegays ;  passion  has 
no  existence  outside  the  Porte-Saint-Martin ;  the 
universe  is  a  place  of  rhymes  and  rhythms,  the 
human  heart  a  supplement  to  the  dictionary.  He 
deliglits  in  babbling  of  green  fields,  and  Homer, 
and  Shakespeare,  and  the  Eumcnides,  and  the 
' rire  enorme'  of  the  Frogs  and  the  Lysisfrata. 
But  it  is  suspected  that  he  loves  these  tilings 
rather  as  words  than  as  facts,  and  that  in  his 
heart  of  hearts  he  is  better  pleased  with  Cassandra 
and  Columbine  than  with  Rosalind  and  Othello, 
with  the  studio  Hellas  of  Gautier  than  with  the 
living  Greece  of  Sophocles.  Heroic  objects  are  all 
very  well  in  their  way  of  course :  they  suggest 
superb  effects  in  verse,  they  are  of  incomparable 
merit  considered  as  colours  and  jewels  for  well- 
turned  sentences  in  prose.     But  their  function  is 


BANVILLE  119 

purely  verbal ;  they  are  the  raw  material  of  the 
outward  form  of  poesy,  and  they  come  into  bein';' 
to  glorify  a  climax,  to  adorn  a  refrain,  to  sparkle 
and  sound  in  odelets  and  rondels  and  triolets,  to 
twinkle  and  tinkle  and  chime  all  over  the  eight- 
and-tweuty  members  of  a  fair  ballade. 


It  is  natural  enough  that  to  a  theory  of  art  and 
life  that  can  be  tlms  whimsically  described  we 
should  be  indebted  for  some  of  the 
best  writing  of  modern  years.  Our  Ilis  Art 
poet  has  very  little  sympathy  with 
fact,  whether  heroic  or  the  reverse,  whetlier 
essential  or  accidental ;  but  he  is  a  rare  artist 
in  words  and  cadences.  He  writes  of  '  Pierrot, 
'  I'homme  subtil,'  and  Columbine,  and  *  le  beau 
'  Lcandre,'  and  all  the  marionettes  of  that  pleasant 
puppet-show  which  he  mistakes  for  the  world,  with 
the  rhetorical  elegance  and  distinction,  the  verbal 
force  and  glow,  the  rhythmic  beauty  and  propriety, 
of  a  rare  poet ;  he  models  a  group  of  flowers  in 
wax  as  passionately  and  cunningly,  and  with  as 
perfect  an  interest  in  the  process  and  as  lofty  and 
august  a  faith  in  the  result,  as  if  he  were  carving 
the  Venus  of  Milo,  or  scoring  Beethoven's  '  Fifth,' 
or  producing  King  Lear  or  the  Ronde  de  Nuit.  He 
lis  profoundly  artificial,  but  he  is  simple  and  even 


120  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

innocent  in  his  artifice ;  so  that  he  is  often  in 
teresting  and  even  affecting.  He  knows  so  well 
what  should  be  done  and  so  well  how  to  do  it 
that  he  not  seldom  succeeds  in  doing'  something 
that  is  actually  and  veritably  art :  something,  that 
is,  in  which  there  is  substance  as  well  as  form, 
in  which  the  matter  is  equal  with  the  manner,  in 
which  the  imagination  is  human  as  well  as  aesthetic 
and  the  invention  not  merely  verbal  but  emotional 
and  romantic  also.  The  dramatic  and  poetic  value 
of  such  achievements  in  style  as  Florise  and  Diane 
au  Bois  is  open  to  question ;  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Gringoire  is  a  play.  There  is  an  abund- 
ance of  '  epical  ennui '  in  le  Sang  de  la  Coupe  and 
les  Stalactites  ;  but  the  '  Nous  n'irons  plus  au  bois  * 
and  the  charming  epigram  in  which  the  poet 
paints  a  processional  frieze  of  Hellenic  virgins  are 
high-water  marks  of  verse.  But,  indeed,  if  Pierrot 
and  Columbine  were  all  the  race,  and  the  footlights 
might  only  change  places  with  the  sun,  then  were 
M.  de  Bauville  by  way  of  being  a  Shakespeare. 


DOBSON 

His  style  has  distinction,  elegance,  urbanity,  pre- 
cision, an  exquisite  clarity.     Of  its  kind  it  is  as 

nearly  as  possible  perfect.     You  think  ,,    ,    , 

.r.  ,  ,  .1^-   ,    Method  and 

of  Horace  as  you  read;  and  you  think  „ 

of  those  among  our  own  eighteenth 
century  poets  to  whom  Horace  was  an  inspiration 
and  an  example.  The  epithet  is  usually  so  just 
that  it  seems  to  have  come  into  being  with  the 
noun  it  qualifies ;  the  metaphor  is  mostly  so 
appropriate  that  it  leaves  you  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  it  suggested  the  poem  or  the  poem 
suggested  it ;  the  verb  is  never  in  excess  of  the 
idea  it  would  convey ;  the  effect  of  it  all  is  that 
'something  has  here  got  itself  uttered,'  and  for 
good.  Could  anything,  for  instance,  be  better,  or 
less  laboriously  said,  than  this  poet's  remonstrance 
To  an  Intrusive  Butterfly}  The  thing  is  instinct 
with  delicate  observation,  so  aptly  and  closely  ex- 
pressed as  to  seem  natural  and  living  as  the  facts 
observed : 

'  I  watch  you  through  the  garden  walks, 

I  watch  yoM  float  between 
The  avenues  of  dahlia  stalks, 

And  flicker  on  the  green  ; 
You  hover  round  the  garden  seat. 

You  mount,  you  waver 


122  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Across  the  room  in  loops  of  flight 
I  watch  you  wayward  go ; 

•  ♦  •  • 

Before  the  bust  -^ow  flaunt  zxi&flit — 

•  *  •  • 

You  pause,  you  poise,  you  circle  up 
Among  my  old  Japan.' 

And  all  the  rest  of  it.  The  theme  is  but  tlie 
v,a^aries  of  a  wandering  insect;  but  how  just  and 
true  is  the  literary  instinct,  how  perfect  the  literary 
savoir-faire!  The  words  I  have  italicised  are  the 
only  words  (it  seems)  in  the  language  that  are 
proper  to  the  occasion ;  and  yet  how  quietly  they 
are  produced,  with  what  apparent  unconsciousness 
they  are  set  to  do  their  work,  how  just  and  how 
sufficient  is  their  effect  !  In  writing  of  this  sort 
there  is  a  cert;iin  artistic  good-breeding  whose  like 
is  not  common  in  these  days.  We  have  lost  the 
secret  of  it :  we  are  too  eager  to  make  the  most  of 
our  little  souls  in  art  and  too  ignorant  to  do  the  best 
by  them  ;  too  egoistic  and  'individual,'  too  clever 
and  skilful  and  well  informed,  to  be  content  with 
the  completeness  of  simi)licity.  Even  the  Laureate 
was  once  addicted  to  glitter  for  glitter's  sake  ;  and 
with  him  to  keep  tliem  in  countenance  there  is  a 
thousand  minor  poets  whose  'little  life'  is  merely 
a  giving  way  to  the  necessities  of  what  is  after  all 
a  condition  of  intellectual  impotence  but  poorly 
redeemed  by  a  habit  of  artistic  swagger.  The 
singer  of  Dorothy  and  Beau  Brocade  is  of  another 
race.  He  is  'the  co-mate  and  brother  in  exile' 
o*"  Matthew  Arnold  and  the  poet  of  The  Unknown 


DOBSON  123 

Eros.  Alone  among  modern  English  bards  the^ 
stand  upon  that  ancient  way  wliich  is  the  best : 
attentive  to  the  pleadings  of  the  Classic  Muse^  heed- 
ful always  to  give  such  thoughts  as  they  may  breed 
no  more  than  their  due  expression. 


BERLIOZ 

One  of  the  very  few  great  musicians  who  have 
been  able  to  write  their  own  language  with  vigour 

and  perspicuity,  Berlioz  was  for  many 
The  Critic       years  among  the  kings  of  the  feuille- 

ton,  among  the  most  accomplished 
journalists  of  the  best  epoch  of  the  Parisian  press. 
He  had  an  abundance  of  wit  and  humour  ;  his  energy 
and  spirit  were  inexhaustible  ;  within  certain  limits 
he  was  a  master  of  expression  and  style ;  in 
criticism  as  in  music  he  was  an  artist  to  his  finger- 
ends  ;  and  if  he  found  writing  hard  work  what  he 
wrote  is  still  uncommonly  easy  reading.  He  is  one 
of  the  few — the  very  few — journalists  the  worth  of 
whose  achievement  has  been  justified  by  collection 
and  republication.  Louis  Veuillot  has  been  weighed 
in  this  balance,  and  found  wanting;  and  so  has  Janin 
prince  of  critics.  With  Berlioz  it  is  otherwise.  If 
you  are  no  musician  he  appeals  to  you  as  a  student 
of  life  ;  if  you  are  interested  in  life  and  music  both 
he  is  irresistible.  The  Memoires  is  one  of  the  two 
or  three  essays  in  artistic  biography  which  may 
claim  equal  honours  with  Benvenuto's  story  of 
himself  and  his  own  doings ;  the  two  volumes  of 
correspondence    rank   with    the  most    interesting 


BERLIOZ  125 

epistolary  matter  of  these  times ;  in  the  Gro- 
tesques, the  A  Travers  Chants,  the  Soirees  de 
I'Orchestre  there  is  enough  of  fun  and  earnest,  of 
fine  criticism  and  diabolical  humour,  of  wit  and 
fancy  and  invention,  to  furnish  forth  a  dozen 
ordinary  critics,  and  leave  a  rich  remainder  when 
all's  done.  These  books  have  been  popular  for 
years ;  they  are  popular  still ;  and  the  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  Berlioz  was  not  only  a  great 
musician  and  a  brilliant  writer ;  he  was  also  a 
very  interesting  and  original  human  being.  His 
writings  are  one  expression  of  an  abnormal  yet 
very  natural  individuality ;  and  when  he  speaks 
you  are  sure  of  something  worth  hearing  and 
remembering. 


Apart  from  Cellini's  ruffianism  there  are  several 

points  of  contact  between  the  two  men.     Berlioz 

made  the  roaring  goldsmith  the  hero 

.  ...  1     ,   r  1   1    .      -^  Proto- 

of  an  opera,  and  it  is  not  doubtrul  that 

.        .  type 

he  was  in  complete  sympathy  with  his 

subject.     In  the  Frenchman  there  is  a  full  measure 

of  the  waywardness  of  temper,  the  impatience  ot 

authority,  the   resolute   and  daring  humour,  the 

passion   of  worship  for  what  is  great  in  art  and 

of  contempt   for  what  is    little  and   bad,   which 

entered  so   largely  into  the   composition   of   the 


12G  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Florentine.  There  is  not  much  to  choose  between 
the  Berlioz  of  the  Dcbats,  the  author  of  the  Gro- 
tesques de  la  Musique  and  the  A  Travers  Chants, 
and  the  Benvenuto  who,  as  II  Lasca  writes  of 
him, 

'  Senza  alcun  ritegno  o  barbazzale 
Delle  cose  malfatte  dicea  male.' 

Benvenuto  enlarges  upon  the  joys  of  drawing  from 
the  life  and  expatiates  upon  the  greatness  of 
Miclielangelo  in  much  the  same  spirit  and  with 
much  the  same  fury  of  admiration  with  which 
Berlioz  descants  upon  the  rapture  of  conducting  an 
orchestra  and  dilates  upon  the  beauty  of  Divinites 
du  Styx  or  the  adagio  of  the  so-called  Moonlight 
Sonata.  It  is  written  of  Benvenuto,  in  connection 
with  Vasari's  attack  upon  that  cupola  of  Santa 
Maria  del  Fiore  which  himself  was  wont  to  call 
*the  marvel  of  beautiful  things/  that  if  he  had 
lived  to  see  the  result, 

'  Certo  non  capirebbe  nelle  pelle ; 
E  saltando,  e  corrttida,  efulminando^ 
S'  andrebbe  querelando, 
E  per  tutto  gridando  ad  alta  voce 
Giorgin  tC A  rezzo  ntetercbbe  in  croce, 
Oggi  universahnente 
Odiato  dtlla  gente 
Quasi  publico  ladro  €  assassino' ; 

and  you  are  reminded  irresistibly  of  Berlioz 
betrampling  Lachnith  and  the  ingenius  Castil- 
Blaze  and  defending  Beethoven  against  the  de- 
structive pedantry  of  Fetis.  And,  just  as  the 
Vita  is  invaluable  as  a  persona^  '-ecord  of  artist-life 


BERLIOZ  127 

in  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance,  so  are  the  Memoires 
invaluable  as  a  personal  record  of  the  works  and 
ways  of  musicians  in  the  Paris  of  the  Romantic 
revival.  Berlioz  is  revealed  in  them  for  one  of  the 
race  of  the  giants.  He  is  the  musician  of  1830,  as 
Delacroix  is  the  painter ;  and  his  worli  is  as  typical 
and  as  significant  as  the  Sardanapale  and  the  Faust 
lithographs. 


To  read  the  Memoires  is  to  feel  that  in  writing 

them  the  great  musician  deliberately  set  himself 

to  win   the  heart  of  posterity.     lie 

believed  in  himself,  and  he  believed  ^ 

.        ,.   .      1     ,  of  Autobio- 

ni   his  music  :   he   divined   that  one 

graphy 
day  or  another  he  would   be  legen- 

daiy  as  well  as  immortal ;  and  he  took  an  infinite 

deal  of  pains  to  make  certain  that  the  ideal  which 

was   presently  to  represent  him   in  men's   minds 

should  be  an  ideal  of  which  he  could  thorouglily 

approve.     It  is  fair  to  note  that  in  this  care  for 

the  good  will  and  the  good  word  of  the  future  he 

was  not  by  any  means  alone.      The  romantiqucs, 

indeed,  were  keen — from  Napoleon  downwards — to 

make  the  very  best  of  themselves.      The  poet  of 

the    Legende  des  Siccles,  for  example,  went  early 

to  work    to    arrange  the    story   of   his   life   and 

character  at  least  as    carefully  as  he   composed 


128  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

the  audiences  of  his  premieres ;  and  he  did  it 
with  so  light  a  hand,  and  with  such  a  sense  of  the 
importance  of  secrecy,  that  it  is  even  now  by  no 
means  so  well  and  widely  known  as  it  should  be 
that  Victor  Hugo  raconte  par  un  Tcmoin  de  sa  Vie  is 
the  work  of  the  hero's  wife,  and  was  not  only  in- 
spired but  may  also  have  been  revised  and  prepared 
for  publication  by  the  hero  himself.  Again,  the 
dramatist  of  Antony  and  the  novelist  of  Bragelonne 
was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was  engaged  upon 
the  creation  of  what  he  hoped  would  be  the  his- 
torical Dumas ;  he  made  volume  after  volume  of 
delightful  reading  out  of  his  own  impressions  and 
adventures  ;  he  turned  himself  into  copy  with  a 
frankness,  a  grace,  a  gusto,  a  persistency  of  egoism, 
which  are  merely  enchanting.  Berlioz,  therefore, 
had  good  warrant  for  his  work.  It  is  more  to  the 
point,  perhaps,  that  he  would  have  taken  it  if  he 
had  not  had  it.  And  1  hold  that  he  would  have 
done  well ;  for  (in  any  case)  a  great  man's  notion 
of  himself  is,  ipso  facto,  better  and  more  agreeable 
and  convincing,  especially  as  he  presents  it,  than 
the  idea  of  his  inferiors  and  admirers,  especially  as 
presented  by  them.  Berlioz,  it  is  true,  was  pro- 
digal in  these  Memoires  of  his  of  wit  and  fun  and 
devilry,  of  fine  humanity  and  noble  art,  of  good 
things  said  and  great  things  dreamed  and  done  and 
suffered ;  but  he  was  prodigal  of  invention  and 
suppression  as  well,  and  the  result,  while  con- 
siderably less  veracious,  is  all  the  more  fasciuuting. 


BERLIOZ  120 

therefor.  One  feels  that  for  one  thing  he  was  toe 
complete  an  artist  to  be  merely  liter.il  and  exact ; 
that  for  another  he  saw  and  felt  things  for  him- 
self, as  Milton  did  before  him — Milton  in  the 
mind's  eye  of  Milton  the  noblest  of  created  things 
and  to  Mr.  Saintsbury  almost  as  unpleasing  a 
spectacle  as  the  gifted  but  abject  Racine ;  and  for 
a  third  that  from  his  own  point  of  view  he  was 
right,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it. 


GEORGE    ELIOT 

It  was  thought  that  with  George  Eliot  the  Novel- 
witli-a-Purpose  had  really  come  to  be  an  adequate 

instrument  for  the  regeneration  of 
The  Ideal       humanity.       It  was  understood   that 

Passion  only  survived  to  point  a  moral 
or  provide  the  materials  of  an  awful  tale,  while 
Duty,  Kinship,  Faith,  were  so  far  paramount  as 
to  govern  Destiny  and  mould  the  world.  A 
vague,  decided  flavour  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and 
Fraternity  was  felt  to  pervade  the  moral  universe, 
a  chill  but  seemly  halo  of  Golden  Age  was  seen 
to  play  soberly  about  things  in  general.  And  it 
was  with  confidence  anticipated  that  those  perfect 
days  were  on  the  march  when  men  and  woir.cu 
would  propose — (from  the  austerest  motives) — by 
the  aid  of  scientific  terminology. 

9 

To  the  Sceptic — (an  apostate,  and  an  undoubted 

male) — another  view  was  preferable.     He  held  that 

George    Eliot    had   carried    what    he 

The  Real      called  the  '  Death's-Head  Style '  of  art 

a  trifle  too  far.      He  read  her  books 

in  much  the  same  spirit  and  to  much  the   same 


GEORGE  ELIOT  131 

purpose  that  he  went  to  the  gymnasium  and 
diverted  himself  with  parallel  bars.  He  detested 
her  technolop^y  ;  her  sententiousness  revolted  while 
it  amused  him ;  and  when  she  put  away  her 
puppets  and  talked  of  them  learnedly  and  with 
understanding — instead  of  letting  them  explain 
themselves,  as  several  great  novelists  have  been 
content  to  do — he  recalled  how  Wisdom  crieth  out 
in  the  street  and  no  man  regardeth  her,  and  per- 
ceived that  in  this  case  the  fault  was  Wisdom's  own. 
He  accepted  with  the  humility  of  ignorance,  and 
sometliing  of  the  learner's  gratitude,  her  woman 
generally,  from  Romola  down  to  Mrs.  Pullet. 
But  his  sense  of  sex  was  strong  enough  to  make 
him  deny  the  possibility  in  any  stage  of  being  of 
nearly  all  the  governesses  in  revolt  it  pleased  her 
to  put  forward  as  men ;  for  with  very  few  excej)- 
tions  he  knew  they  were  heroes  of  the  divided  skirt. 
To  him  Deronda  was  an  incarnation  of  woman's 
rights;  Tito  an  'improper  female  in  breeclies'; 
Silas  Marner  a  good,  perplexed  old  maid,  of  the 
kind  of  whom  it  is  said  that  they  have  '  had  a 
*  disappointment.'  And  Lydgate  alone  had  aught 
of  the  true  male  principle  about  him. 


Epigrams  are  at  best  half-truths  that  look  like 
whole   ones.       Here   is   a  handful    about   Geoire 


132  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Eliot.     It  has  been  said  of  her  books — ('on  several 

*  occasions') — that  'it  is  doubtful   whether  they 

'  are  novels  disguised  as  treatises,  or 
.  '  treatises  disguised  as  novels ' ;  that, 

'  while  less  romantic  than  Euclid's 
'  Elements,  they  are  on  the  whole  a  great  deal 
'  less  improving  readin^^' ;  and  that  'they  seem  tt 

*  have  been  dictated  to  a  plain  woman  of  genius 
'  by  the  ghost  of  David  Hume.'  Herself,  too,  has 
been   variously   described  :   as  '  An   Apotheosis  of 

*  Pupil-Teachery ' ;  as  '  George  Sand  plris  Science 
'  and  minus  Sex' ;  as  'Pallas  with  prejudices  and 
'  a  corset ' ;    as  '  the   fruit  of  a  caprice  of  Apollo 

*  for  the  Differential  Calculus.'  The  conip;irison 
of  her  admirable  talent  to  '  not  the  imperial  violin 
'  but  the  grand  ducal  violoncello '  seems  suggestive 
and  is  not  unkind. 


BORROW 

Three  hundred  years  since  Borrow  would  have 

been  a   gentleman    adventurer :     he   would   have 

dropped  quietly  down  the  river,  and 

steered   for  the   Spanish   Main,  bent     __ 

Vocation 
upon    making    carbonadoes    of   your 

Don.     But  he  came  too  late  for  that,  and  falling 

upon  no  sword  and  buckler  age  but  one  that  was 

interested  in  Randal  and  Spring,  he  accepted  that 

he  found,  and  did  his  best  to  turn  its  conditions 

into  literature.     As  he  had  that  admirable  instinct 

of  making  the  best  of  things  which  marks  the  true 

adventurer,  he  was  on  the  whole  exceeding  happy. 

There  was  no  more  use  in  sailing  for  Javan  and 

Gadire .    but   at    home    there    were    higliways    in 

abundance,  and   what  is  your  genuine   tramp  but 

a  dry-land  sailor.''      The  Red  Man  is  exhausted 

of  everything    but    sordidness ;    but   under    that 

round-shouldered  little  tent  at  the  bend   of  the 

road,    beside  that  fire    artistically   built  beneath 

that    kettle    of    the   comfortable    odours,   among 

those  horses  and  colts  at  graze  hard  by,  are  men 

and  women  more  mysterious  and  more  alluring  to 

the  romantic  mind  than  any  Mingo  or  Comanch 

that  ever  traded  a  scalp.     \V'hile  as  for  your  tricks 


134  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

of  fence — your  immoi'tal  passado,  your  punto  rff- 
verso — if  that  be  no  longer  the  right  use  for  a 
gentleman,  have  not  Spring  and  Langan  fought 
their  great  battle  on  Worcester  racecourse  ?  and 
has  not  Cribb  of  Gloucestershire — that  renowned, 
heroic,  irresistible  Thomas — beaten  Molyneux  the 
negro  artist  in  the  presence  of  twenty  thousand 
roaring  Britons  ?  and  shall  the  ])ractice  of  an  art 
which  has  rejoiced  in  such  a  master  as  the 
illustrious  Game  Chicken,  Hannibal  of  the  Ring, 
be  held  degrading  by  an  Englishman  of  sufficient 
inches  who,  albeit  a  Tory  and  a  High  Church- 
man, is  at  bottom  as  thoroughgoing  a  Republican 
as  ever  took  the  word  of  command  from  Colonel 
Cromwell  ?  And  if  all  this  fail,  if  he  get  nobody 
to  put  on  the  gloves  with  him,  if  the  tents  of 
the  Romany  prove  barren  of  interest,  if  the  king's 
highway  be  vacant  of  adventure  as  Mayfair,  he 
has  still  philology  to  fall  back  upon,  lie  can  still 
console  himself  with  the  study  of  strange  tongues, 
he  can  still  exult  in  a  peculiar  superiority  by 
quoting  the  great  Ab  Gwylim  where  the  baser 
sort  of  persons  is  content  with  Sliakespeare.  So 
that  what  with  these  and  some  kindred  diver- 
sions— a  little  horse-wliispering  and  ale-drink- 
ing, the  damnation  of  Popery,  the  study  of  the 
Bible — he  can  manage  not  merely  to  live  but  to 
live  so  fully  and  richly  as  to  be  the  envy  of 
some  and  the  amazement  of  all.  That,  as  life 
goes    and   as  the    world   wags,    is  given   to   lew. 


BORROW  135 

Add  to  it  the  credit  of  having  written  as  good  a 
book  about  Spain  as  ever  was  written  in  any  lan- 
guage, the  happiness  of  having  dreamed  and  partly 
lived  that  book  ere  it  was  written,  the  perfect  joy 
of  being  roundly  abused  by  everybody,  and  the 
consciousness  of  being  different  from  everybody  and 
of  giving  at  least  as  good  as  ever  you  got  at  several 
things  the  world  is  silly  enough  to  hold  in  worship 
— as  the  Toryism  of  Sir  Walter,  or  the  niceness  of 
Popery,  or  the  pleasures  of  Society  :  and  is  it  not 
plain  that  Borrow  was  a  man  uncommon  fortu- 
nate, and  that  he  enjoyed  life  as  greatly  as  most 
men  not  savages  who  have  possessed  the  fruition 
of  this  terrestrial  sphere  ? 


He  prepared  his  effects  as  studiously  and  almost 
as  dexterously  as  Dumas  himself.      His  instinct  of 
the  picturesque  was  rarely  indeed  at 
fault ;    he  marshalled   his  personages     Ideals  and 
and   arranged   his   scene   with   some-     Achieve- 
thing  of  that  passion  for  effect  which       ments 
entered  so  largely  into  the  theory  of 
M.   le  Comte  de  Monte-Cristo.     However  closely 
disguised,    himself  is    always    the    heroic   figure, 
and  he  is  ever   busy  in  arranging  discovery  and 
triumph.     To  his  forebears  he  is  but  an  eccentric 
person,  an   amateur  tinker,  a  slack-baked  gijJsy, 
an    unlettered  hack ;    to   his  audience  he  is  his 


136  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

own,  strong,  indifferent  self:  presently  the  rest 
will  recognise  him  and  he  will  be  disdainfully 
content.  And  recognise  him  they  do.  He  throws 
oflF  his  disguise  ;  there  is  a  gape,  a  stare,  a  general 
conviction  that  Lavengro  is  the  greatest  man  in 
the  world ;  and  then — as  the  manner  of  Lesage 
commands — the  adventure  ends,  the  stars  resume 
their  wonted  courses,  and  the  self-conscious  Tinker- 
Quixote  takes  the  road  once  more  and  passes 
on  to  other  achievements :  a  mad  preacher  to 
succour,  a  priest  to  baffle,  some  tramp  to  pound 
into  a  jelly  of  humility,  an  applewoman  to  mystify, 
a  horse-cliaunter  to  swindle,  a  pugilist  to  study  and 
help  and  portray.  But  whatever  it  be,  Lavengro 
emerges  from  the  ordeal  modesth',  unobtrusively, 
quietly,  most  consciously  magnificent,  (^'ircum- 
stJintial  as  Defoe,  rich  in  combinations  as  Lesage, 
and  with  such  an  instinct  of  the  picturesque,  both 
personal  and  local,  as  none  of  these  possessed, 
tliis  strange  wild  man  holds  on  his  strange  wild 
way,  and  leads  you  captive  to  the  end.  His  dia- 
logue is  copious  and  appropriate :  you  feel  that 
like  Ben  Jonson  he  is  dictating  rather  thiiii  re- 
porting, that  he  is  less  faithful  and  exact  than 
imaginative  and  determined ;  but  you  are  none 
the  less  pleased  with  it,  and  suspicious  tliougli 
you  be  th;it  the  voice  is  Lavengro's  and  the 
haiuls  are  the  hands  of  some  one  else,  you  are 
glad  to  surreiuler  to  the  illusion,  and  you  regret 
when   it  is  dispelled.       Moreover,  that  all  of  it 


BORROW  137 

should  be  set  down  in  racy,  nervous,  idiomatic 
English,  with  a  kind  of  eloquence  at  once  primitive 
and  scholarly,  precious  but  homely — the  speech  of 
an  artist  in  sods  and  turfs — if  at  first  it  surprise 
and  charm  yet  ends  by  seeming  so  natural  and  just 
that  you  go  on  to  forget  all  about  it  and  accept 
the  whole  thing  as  the  genuine  outcome  of  a  man's 
experience  which  it  purports  to  be.  Add  that  it  is 
all  entirely  unsexual ;  that  there  is  none  with  so 
poor  an  intelligence  of  the  heart  as  women  moves 
it ;  that  the  book  does  not  exist  in  which  the 
relations  between  boy  and  girl  are  more  miserably 
misrepresented  than  in  Lavengro  and  The  Romany 
Rye ;  that  that  picaresque  ideal  of  romance  which, 
finding  utterance  in  Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  was  pre- 
sently to  appeal  to  such  artists  as  Cervantes, 
Quevedo,  Lesage,  Smollett,  the  Dickens  of  Pick- 
wick,  finds  such  expression  in  Lavengro  and  The 
Romany  Rye  as  nowhere  else ;  and  the  tale  of 
Borrow  is  complete  enough. 


Despite  or  because  of  a  habit  of  mystification 
which  obliged  him  to  jumble  together  the  homely 
Real   and  a  not  less   homely  Ideal, 
Lavengro    will    always,    I    think,   be     Himself 
found    worthy    of  companionship,   if 
only  as  the  one  exemplary  artist-tramp  the  race  has 
yet  achieved.      The  artist-tramp,  the  tinker  who 


138  VJEVVS  AND  REVIEW^S 

can  write,  the  horse-coper  with  a  twang  of  Hamlet 
and  a  habit  of  Monte-Cristo — that  is  George 
Borrow.  For  them  that  love  these  differences 
there  is  none  in  whom  they  are  so  cunningly  and 
quaintly  blended  as  George  Borrow;  and  they 
that  love  them  not  may  keep  the  other  side  of  the 
road  and  fare  in  peace  elsewhither. 


BALZAC 

To  Goethe  it  seemed  that  every  one  of  Balzac'a 
novels  had  been  dug  out  of  a  suifering  woman's 
heart;  but  Goethe  spoke  not  always 


wisely,   and    in   this   exacting   world         ^^, 


Under  which 
King  i 


there  be  some  that  not  only  have 
found  fault  with  Balzac's  method  and  results  but 
have  dared  to  declare  his  theory  of  society  the 
dream  of  a  mind  diseased.  To  these  critics 
Balzac  was  less  observer  than  creator :  his  views 
were  false,  his  vision  was  distorted,  and  though  he 
had  'incomparable  power'  he  had  not  power 
enough  to  make  them  accept  his  work.  This 
theory  is  English,  and  in  France  they  find  Balzac 
possible  enough.  There  is  something  of  him  in 
Pierre  Dupont ;  he  made  room  for  the  work  of 
Flaubert,  Feydeau,  the  younger  Dumas,  Augier 
and  Zola  and  the  brothers  Goncourt ;  and  to  him 
Charles  Baudelaire  is  as  some  fat  strange  fungus 
to  the  wine-cask  in  whose  leakiiigs  it  springs. 
Sainte-Beuve  refused  to  acce])t  him,  but  his  'Pigault- 
'  Lebrun  des  duchesses '  is  only  malicious :  he 
resented  the  man's  exuberant  and  inordinate  per- 
sonality, and  made  haste  to  apply  to  it  some  drops 


140  VIE^VS  AND  REVIEWS 

of  that  sugared  vitriol  of  which  he  had  the  secret 
Taine  is  a  fitter  critic  of  the  Comedie  humaine  than 
Sainte-Beuve ;  and  Taine  has  come  to  other  con- 
clusions. Acute,  coarse,  methodical,  exhaustive, 
he  has  recognised  the  greatness  of  one  still  more 
exhaustive,  methodical,  coarse,  and  acute  than 
himself.  English  critics  fall  foul  of  Balzac's 
women  ;  but  Taine  falls  foul  of  English  critics, 
and  with  the  authority  of  a  Parisian  by  profession 
declares  that  the  Parisiennes  of  the  Comedie  are 
everything  they  ought  to  be — the  true  daughters 
of  their  'bon  gros  libertin  de  pere.'  And  wliile 
Taine,  exulting  in  his  Marneffe  and  his  Coralie, 
does  solemnly  and  brilliantly  show  that  he  is  right 
and  everybody  else  is  wrong,  a  later  writer — 
English  of  course — can  find  no  better  parallel  of 
Balzac  than  Browning,  and  knows  nothing  in  art 
so  like  the  Pauline  of  la  Peau  de  Chagrin  as  the 
Sistine  Madonna.  It  is  curious,  this  clash  of 
opinions ;  and  it  is  plain  that  one  or  other  party 
must  be  wrong.  Which  is  it?  'Qui  trompe-t-on 
'ici.-*'  Is  Taine  a  better  judge  than  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  or  Mr.  Henry  James .-'  Or  are  Messrs. 
James  and  Stephen  better  qualified  to  speak 
with  authority  than  Taine  ?  It  may  be  that  none 
but  a  Frenchman  can  thoroughly  and  intimately 
apprehend  in  its  inmost  a  thing  so  essentially 
French  as  the  Comedie ;  it  is  a  fact  that  French- 
men of  all  sorts  and  sizes  have  accepted  the 
Comedie  in   its  totality ;   and   that  is  reason  good 


BALZAC  141 

enough  for  any  commonplace  Englishman  who  is 
lacking  in  the  vanity  of  originality  to  accept  i* 
also. 


Balzac's  ambition  was  to  be  omnipotent.  He 
would  be  ]\IioheIangelesque,  and  that  by  theer 
for«;e  of  minuteness.  He  exaggerated 
scientifically,  and  made  things  gigantic  The  Fact 
by  a  microscopic  fulness  of  detail. 
His  Hulot  was  to  remain  the  Antony  of  modem 
romance,  losing  the  world  for  the  love  of  woman, 
and  content  to  lose  it ;  his  Marueffe,  in  whom  is 
incarnated  the  instinct  and  the  science  of  sexual 
corruption,  is  Hulot's  Cleopatra,  and  only  dies 
because  '  elle  va  faire  le  bon  Dieu ' — as  who  should 
say  '  to  mash  the  Old  Man ' ;  FrenhoefFer,  Philippe 
Bridau,  Vautrin,  Marsay,  Rastignac,  Grandet, 
Balthazar  Claes,  Beatrix,  Sarrazine,  Lousteau, 
Esther,  Lucien  Chardon — the  list  is,  I  believe, 
some  thousands  strong  !  Also  the  argument  ia 
proved  in  advance :  there  is  the  Comedie  itself — 
'the  new  edition  fifty  volumes  long.'  Bad  or 
good,  foul  or  fair,  impossible  or  actual,  a  mon- 
strous debauch  of  mind  or  a  triumph  of  realisation, 
there  is  the  Comedie.  It  is  forty  years  since  Balzac 
squared  and  laid  the  last  stones  of  it ;  and  it  exists 
— if  a  little  the  worse  for  wear  :  the  bulk  is  enor- 
mous— if  the  materials  be  in  some  sort  worm-eatec 


142  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

and  crumbling'.  Truly,  he  had  'incomparable 
'  power.'  He  was  the  least  capable  and  the  most 
self-conscious  of  artists ;  his  observation  was  that 
of  an  inspired  and  very  careful  auctioneer ;  he  was 
a  visionary  and  a  fanatic ;  he  was  gross,  ignorant, 
morbid  of  mind,  cruel  in  heart,  vexed  with  a 
strain  of  Sadism  that  makes  him  on  the  whole 
corrupting  and  ignoble  in  effect.  But  he  divined 
and  invented  prodigiously  if  he  observed  and  re- 
corded tediously,  and  his  achievement  remains 
a  phantasmagoria  of  desperate  suggestions  and 
strange,  affecting  situations  and  potent  and  inor- 
dinate effects.  He  may  be  impossible ;  but  there 
is  French  literature  and  French  society  to  show 
that  he  passed  that  way,  and  had  'incomparable 
'  power.'  The  phrase  is  Mr.  Henry  James's,  and  it 
is  hard  to  talk  of  Balzac  and  refrain  from  it. 


LABICHE 

To  the  maker  of  Poirier  and  Fabrice,  of  Sera- 

phine  and  Giboyer,  of  Olympe  and  the  Marquis 

d'Auberive,     there    were    analogies 

between  the  genius  of  Labiche  and       ^        .     „ 

JJaurmerf 
the  genius   of  Teniers.       '  C  est  au 

'  premier  abord,'  says  he,  'le  mcme  aspect  de  cari- 

'  cature  ;  c'est,  en  y  regardant  de  phis  pres,  la  meme 

'  finesse  de  tons,  la  meme  justesse  d'expression,  la 

'  meme  vivacite  de  mouvement.'     For  myself,   I 

like  to  think  of  Labiclie  as  in  some  sort  akin  to 

Honore    Daumier.      Earnestness  and   acc<)iuj)lish- 

ment   apart,   he  has  much  in  common  with  that 

king   of  caricaturists.     The   lusty  frankness,    the 

^ovial  ingenuity,  the  keen  sense  of  the  ridiculous, 

the    insatiable    instinct    of    observation,    of    the 

draughtsman  are  a   great   part  of  tlie  equipment 

or   the   playwright.       Augier  notes   that  truth   is 

everywhere  in  Labiche's  work,  and  Augier  is  right. 

He  is   before   everything  a  dramatist :   an  artist, 

that  is,  whose  function  is  to  tell  a  story  in  action 

and  by  the  mouths  of  its  personages ;  and  whimsical 

and  absurd  as  he  loves  to  be,  he  is  never  either  the 

one  or  the  other  at  the  expense  of  nature.     He  is 

often  careless  and  futile  :  he  will  squander — (as  in 

yin(jt-neuf  Deg^es  a  I'Ombre  and  I'Avare  en  Gants 


144  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Juunes) — an  idea  that  rij^litly  belonj^s  to  the 
domain  of  pure  comedy  on  the  presentation  of  a 
most  uproarious  farce.  But  he  is  never  any  falser 
to  his  vocation  than  this.  Now  and  then,  as  in 
Moi  and  le  Voyage  de  M.  Perrichon,  he  is  an  ex- 
cellent comic  poet,  dealing  witli  comedy  seriously 
as  comedy  should  be  dealt  with,  and  incarnating  a 
vice  or  an  aifectation  in  a  certain  character  with 
impeccable  justness  and  assurance.  Now  and  tlien, 
as  in  les  Petits  Oiseaux  and  les  Vivacites  du  Capitaine 
Tic,  he  is  content  to  tell  a  charming  story  as 
pleasantly  as  possible.  Sometimes,  as  in  Celimari 
le  Bien-Aime  (held  by  M.  Sarcey  to  be  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  modern  vaudeville),  le  Plus 
Heureux  des  Trois,  and  le  Prix  Martin,  he  iiglits 
{igain  from  a  humouristic  point  of  view  tliat  trian- 
gular duel  between  the  wife,  the  husband,  and  the 
lover  which  fills  so  large  a  place  in  the  literature 
of  France ;  and  then  he  shows  the  reverse  of  the 
medal  of  adultery — with  tlie  husband  at  his  ease, 
the  seducer  haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  old  sins,  the 
erring  wife  the  slave  of  her  unsuspecting  lord.  Or 
again,  he  takes  to  turning  the  world  upside  down,  and 
— as  in  the  Cagnotte,  tlie  Cliupcau  de  Paille,  and  the 
Trente  Millions — to  producing  a  scheme  of  morjils 
and  society  that  seems  to  have  been  dictated  from 
an  Olympus  demoralised  by  champagne  and  lobster. 
But  at  his  wildest  he  never  forgets  that  men  and 
women  are  themselves.  His  dialogue  is  always 
right  and  appropriate,  however  extravagant  it  be. 


LABICHE  145 

His  vivid  and  varied  knowledge  of  life  and  character 
supplies  him  with  touches  enough  of  nature  and 
truth  to  make  the  fortune  of  a  dozen  ordinary 
dramatists ;  and  withal  you  feel  as  you  read  that 
he  is  writing,  as  Augier  says  of  him,  to  amuse  him- 
self merely,  and  that  he  could  an  if  he  would  be 
solemn  and  didactic  with  all  the  imprcssiveness 
that  a  perfect  acquaintance  with  men  and  things 
and  an  admirable  dramatic  aptitude  can  bestow. 
The  fact  that  he  is  always  in  a  good  temper  has 
done  him  some  wrong  in  that  it  has  led  him  to 
be  to  all  appearances  amusing  only  where  he 
might  well  have  posed  as  a  severe  and  serious 
artist.  But  he  is  none  the  less  true  for  having 
elected  to  be  funny,  and  there  is  certainly  more 
genuine  human  nature  and  human  feeling  in  such 
drolleries  as  the  Chapeaii  de  Puille  and  le  Plus 
Ileureux  dcs  Trois  than  in  all  tlie  serious  dramas 
of  Ponsard  (say)  and  Hugo  put  together. 


% 


Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  and   individual 
part  of  his  work  is  that  in  which  he  has  given  his 
invention  full  swing,  and  allowed  his 
humour   to   play   its  maddest  pranks      Lahiche 
at  will.      Moi  is  an  admirable  comedy, 
and  De  la  Porcheraie  is  aluiost  hideously  egoistic ; 
the  Voyage  de  M.  Perrichnn  is  delightful  reading. 


146  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

and  Perrichon  is  as  pompous  an  ass  as  I  k\iow, 
but  the  C'hapeau  de  Faille,  the  Cagnotte,  the 
Trente  Millions,  the  Sensitive,  the  Deux  Merles 
BImics,  the  Doit-On  le  Dire,  and  their  compeers — 
with  them  it  is  other-guess  work  altogetlier.  In 
these  whimsical  phantasmagorias  men  and  women 
move  and  speak  as  at  the  bidding  of  destinies  drunk 
with  hiughing-gas.  Time  and  chance  have  gone 
demented,  fate  has  turned  comic  poet,  society  has 
become  its  own  parody,  everybody  is  the  irrepres- 
sible caricature  of  himself.  You  are  in  a  topsy- 
turvy world,  enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  instinct 
with  gaiety  and  folly,  where  burlesque  is  natural 
and  only  the  extravagant  is  normal  ;  where  your 
Chimaera  has  grown  frolic,  your  Niglitmare  is 
first  Cousin  to  the  Cheshire  Cat,  aiul  your  Sphinxes 
are  all  upon  the  spree ;  and  where  you  liave  as 
little  concern  for  what  is  real  as  you  liave  in  that 
hemisphere  of  the  great  globe  of  MuliL-re — tliat 
has  Scapin  and  Sganarelle  for  its  brood-bates,  and 
Pourceaugnac  for  its  butt,  and  Pancrace  and 
Marphurius  for  its  scientific  men,  and  Le'lie  and 
Agnes  for  its  incarnations  of  love  and  beauty. 
That  the  creator  of  such  a  world  as  tliis  should 
have  aspired  to  tlie  Academy's  spare  arm-chair 
— that  one  above  all  otliers  but  just  vacated  Ijy 
the  respectable  M.  de  Sacy — was  a  fact  that 
roused  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  even  to  satire. 
But  if  the  arm-chair  brought  honour  with  it,  tlien 
no  man  better  deserved  tlie  ])rivilcge  than  KngLue 


LABICHE  147 

Labiche,  for  he  had  amused  and  kept  awake  the 
public  for  nearly  forty  years — for  almost  as  long, 
that  is,  as  the  Revue  had  been  sending  it  to  sleep. 
There  are  times  and  seasons  when  a  good  laugh 
makes  more  for  edification  than  whole  folios  of 
good  counsel.  '  I  regarded  him  not,'  quoth  Sir 
Jolin  of  one  that  would  have  moved  him  to 
sapience,  'and  yet  he  talked  wisely.'  Now  Sir 
John,  whatever  his  opinion  of  the  Revue,  would 
never  have  said  all  that — the  second  part  of  it  he 
might — of  anything  signed  '  Eugene  Labiche,'  nor 
— so  I  love  to  believe — would  his  august  creator 
either.  For  is  not  his  work  so  full  of  quick,  fiery, 
and  delectjible  shapes  as  to  be  perpetual  sherris .'' 
And  when  time  and  season  fit,  what  more  can  the 
heart  of  man  desire  ? 


CHAMPFLEURY 

Champfleury — novelist,  dramatist,  archaeologist , 
humourist,     and     literary     historian  —  helonged 

to  a  later  generation  than  that  of 
The  Man     Petnis  Borel  and  Philothee  O'Neddy  ; 

hut  he  could  remember  the  production 
of  les  Bargrdve.s,  and  was  able  of  his  own  personal 
knowledge  to  laugh  at  the  melancholy  sj)eech  of 
poor  Celestin  Naiiteuil — the  famous  'II  n'y  a 
*  plus  de  jeunesse'  of  a  man  grown  old  and 
incredulous  and  apathetic  before  his  time :  the 
lament  over  a  yesterday  already  a  hundred  years 
behind.  He  had  lived  in  the  Latin  quarter ;  he 
had  dined  with  Flit-oteaux,  and  listened  to  the 
orchestras  of  Habeneck  and  Musard ;  he  had 
heard  the  chimes  at  midnight  with  Baudelaire 
and  INIurger,  hissed  the  tragedies  of  Ponsard, 
applauded  Deburau  and  Ilouviore,  and  seen  the 
rise  and  fall  of  Courbet  and  Dupont.  If  he 
was  not  of  the  giants  he  was  of  their  immediate 
successors,  and  he  had  seen  them  actually  at 
work.  He  had  hacked  for  Balzac,  and  read 
romantic  prose  at  Victor  Hugo's ;  he  had  lived 
so  near  the  red  waistcoat  of  Thcophile  Gautier 
as  to  dare   to  go   up  and  down  in  Paris  (under 


CHAMPFLEURY  149 

the  inspiration  of  the  artist  of  la  Femme  qui 
taille  la  Soupe)  in    'un   hahit  en    bouracan   vert 

*  avec  col  a  la  Marat,  un  gilet  de  couleur 
'  bachique,  et  une  culotte  en  drap  d'un  jaune 
'  assez  malsc'ant/  together  with  '  une  triomphante 

*  cravate  de  soie  jaune' — a  vice  of  Baudelaire's 
inventing — and  '  un  feutre  ras  dans  le  gout  de  la 
'  coiffure  de  Camille  Desmoulins.'  And  having 
seen  for  himself,  he  could  judge  for  himself  as 
well.*  From  first  to  last  he  showed  himself  to  be 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  ambitions  and  effects  of 
romanticism.  He  was  born  a  humourist  and  an 
observer,  and  he  became  a  '  realist '  as  soon  as  he 
beffan  to  write. 


His  work  is  an  antipodes  not  only  of  Ilernani 
and  Notre-Dame  but  of  Sarrazine  and  la  Cousine 
Bette  and  Beatrix  as  well.  For  the 
commonplace  types  and  incidents.  The  Writer 
the  everyday  passions  and  fortunes, 
of  the  Aventures  de  Marietta  and  the  Mascarade  de 
la  Vie  Parisienne  represent  a  reaction  not  alone 
against  the  sublimities  and  the  extravagance  of 
Hugo  but  against  the  heroic  aggrandisement  of 
things  trivial  of  Balzac  as  well.  True,  they  deal 
with  kindred  subjects,  and  they  purport  to  be 
a  record  of  life   as  it  is  and   not  of  life  as  it 


160  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

ought  to  be.  But  the  pupil's  point  of  view  is 
poles  apart  from  the  master's ;  his  intention,  his 
ambition,  his  inspiration,  belong  to  another  order 
of  ideas.  He  contents  himself  with  observing  and 
noting  and  reflecting ;  with  making  prose  prosaic 
and  adding  sobi'iety  and  plainness  to  a  plain 
and  sober  story  ;  with  being  merely  curious  and 
intelligent ;  with  using  experience  not  as  an 
intoxicant  but  as  a  staple  of  diet ;  with  considering 
fact  not  as  the  raw  material  of  inspiration  but  as 
inspiration  itself.  Between  an  artist  of  this  sort — 
pedestrian,  good-tempered,  touched  with  malice,  a 
little  cynical — and  the  noble  desperadoes  of  1830 
there  could  be  little  sympathy;  and  there  seems  no 
reason  why  the  one  should  be  tlie  others'  historian, 
and  none  why,  if  their  historian  he  should  be,  his 
history  should  be  other  than  partial  and  narrow — 
than  at  best  an  achievement  in  special  ple.iding.  But 
Champfleury's  was  a  personality  apart.  His  master 
quality  was  curiosity ;  he  was  interested  in  every- 
thing, and  he  was  above  all  things  interested  in 
men  and  women  ;  he  had  a  liberal  mind  and  no 
prejudices ;  he  had  the  scientific  spirit  and  the 
scientific  intelligence,  if  he  sometimes  spoke  with 
the  voice  of  tlie  humourist  and  in  the  terms  of 
the  artist  in  words  ;  and  his  studies  in  roman- 
ticism are  far  better  literature  than  his  experiments 
in  fictioa. 


LONGFELLOW 

The  ocean  as  confidant,  a  Laertes  that  can 
neither  avoid  his  Hamlets  nor  bid  them  hold  their 
peace,  is  a  modern  invention.  Byron 
and  Shelley  discovered  it ;  Heine  took  Sea  Poets 
it  into  his  confidence,  and  told  it  the 
story  of  his  loves ;  Wordsworth  made  it  a  moral 
influence ;  Browning  loved  it  in  his  way,  but  his 
way  was  not  often  the  poet's  ;  to  Matthew  Arnold 
it  was  the  voice  of  destiny,  and  its  message  was  a 
message  of  despair;  Hugo  conferred  with  it  as  with 
an  humble  friend,  and  uttered  such  lofty  things 
over  it  as  are  rarely  heard  upon  the  lips  of  man. 
And  so  with  living  lyrists  each  after  his  kind. 
Lord  Tennyson  listens  and  looks  until  it  strikes 
him  out  an  undying  note  of  passion,  or  yearning, 
or  regret — 

'  Sunset  and  evening  star, 
And  one  clear  call  for  me ' ; 

Mr.  Swinburne  maddens  with  the  wind  and  the 
sounds  and  the  scents  of  it,  until  there  passes  into 
his  verse  a  something  of  its  vastness  and  its 
vehemency,  the  rapture  of  its  inspiration,  the 
palpitating,  many-twinkling  miracle  of  its  light ; 
Mr.  William  Morris  has  been  taken  with  the 
manner  of  its  melancholy ;  while  to  Whitman  it 


162  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

has  been  'the  g^reat  Camerado'  indeed,  for  it  gave 
liim  that  song  of  the  brown  bird  bereft  of  his  mate 
in  whose  absence  the  half  of  him  had  not  been  told 
to  us. 


But  to  Longfellow  alone  was  it  given  to  see  that 
stately  galley  which  Count  Arnaldos  saw ;  his 
only  to  hear  the  steersman  singing 
Longfellow  that  wild  and  wondrous  song  which 
none  that  hears  it  can  resist,  and  none 
that  has  heard  it  may  forget.  Then  did  he  learn 
the  old  monster's  secret — the  word  of  his  charm, 
the  core  of  his  mystery,  the  human  note  in  his 
music,  the  quality  of  his  influeuce  upon  the  heart 
and  tlie  mind  of  man  ;  and  then  did  lie  win  himself 
a  place  apart  among  sea  poets.  With  the  most  of 
them  it  is  a  case  of  Ego  et  rex  meus  :  It  is  I  and  the 
sea,  and  my  egoism  is  as  valiant  aiul  as  vocal  as 
the  other's.  But  Longfellow  is  tlie  spokesman  of  a 
confraternity  ;  what  thrills  him  to  utterance  is  the 
spirit  of  that  strange  and  beautiful  freemasonry 
esUiblislied  as  long  ago  as  when  the  first  sailor 
steered  the  first  keel  out  into  the  unknown,  irre- 
sistible water-world,  and  so  established  the  founda- 
tions of  the  eternal  brotherhood  of  man  with 
ocean.  To  him  the  sea  is  a  place  of  mariners 
and  ships.  In  his  verse  the  rigging  creaks,  the 
white  sail  fills  and  crackles,  there  are  blown  smells 


LONGFELLOW  153 

of  pine  and  hemp  and  tar ;  you  catch  the  home 
wind  on  your  cheeks  ;  and  old  shipmen^  their  eye- 
balls white  in  their  bronzed  faces,  with  silver  rings 
and  gaudy  handkerchiefs,  come  in  and  tell  you 
moving  stories  of  the  immemorial,  incommunicable 
deep.  He  abides  in  a  port ;  he  goes  down  to  the 
docks,  and  loiters  among  the  galiots  and  brigau- 
tines ;  he  hears  the  melancholy  song  of  the 
chanty-men ;  he  sees  the  chips  flying  under  the 
shipwright's  adze  ;  he  smells  the  pitch  that  smokes 
and  bubbles  in  the  caldron.  And  straightway  he 
falls  to  singing  his  variations  on  the  ballad  of 
Count  Arnaldos ;  and  the  world  listens,  for  its 
heart  beats  in  his  song. 


TENNYSON 

In  Keats's  St.  Agnes'  Eve  nothing  is  white  but 

the  heroine.      It  is  winter,  and  '  bitter  chill ' ;  the 

,    hare   'limps  trembling    through   the 

■  *  frozen  grass ' :  the  owl  is  a-cold  for 

Eoe  , 

all     his     feathers  ;     the     beadsman  a 

fingers  are  numb,  his  breath   is  frosted ;    and  at 

an  instant  of  special  and  peculiar  romance 

'  The  frost-wind  blows 
Like  Love's  alarum,  pattering  the  sharp  sleet 
Against  the  window-panes.' 

But  there  is  no  snow.  The  picture  is  pure  colour : 
it  blushes  with  blood  of  queens  and  kings ;  it 
glows  with  'splendid  dyes,' like  the  'tiger-moth's 
'  deep-damasked  wings' — with  'rose  bloom,'  and 
'  warm  gules,'  and  '  soft  amethyst '  ;  it  is  loud  with 
music  and  luxurious  with  'spiced  dainties,'  with 

*  lucent  syrops  tinct  with  cinnamon,'  with  '  manna 

*  and    dates,'   the    fruitage   of   Fez   and    'cedared 

*  Lebanon'  and  'silken  Samarcand.'  Now,  the 
Laureate's  St.  Agnes'  Eve  is  an  ecstasy  of  colourless 
perfection.  The  snows  sparkle  on  the  convent 
roof;  the  'first  snowdrop'  vies  with  St.  Agnes' 
virgin  bosom  ;  the  moon  shines  an  '  argent  round ' 
in  the  '  frosty  skies ' ;  and  in  a  transport  of  purity 
the  lady  prays : 


TENNYSON  1^5 

•  Break  up  thy  heavens,  O  Lord  !  and  far, 
Through  all  the  starlight  keen, 
Draw  me  thy  bride,  a  glittering  star, 
In  raiment  white  and  clean.' 

It  is  all  coldly,  miraculously  stainless :  as  some- 
body has  said,  'la  vraie  Symphonie  en  Blanc 
'  Majeur.' 


And  at  four-score  the  poet  of  St.  Agnes'  Eve  is 

still  our  greatest  since  the  Wordsworth  of  certain 

sonnets  and  the  two  immortal  odes : 

is  still  the  one  Englishman  of  whom 

,         ,    ,    ,.       ,     ,  Summer 

it   can   be   stated   and    believed    that 

Elislia  is  not  less  than  Elijah.  His  verse  is  far  less 
smooth  and  less  lustrous  than  in  the  well-filed 
times  of  In  Memoriam  and  the  Arthurian  idylls. 
But  it  is  also  far  more  plangent  and  affecting ;  it 
shows  a  larger  and  more  liberal  mastery  of  form 
and  therewith  a  finer,  stronger,  saner  sentiment  of 
material ;  in  its  display  of  breadth  and  freedom  in 
union  with  particularity,  of  suggestiveuess  with 
precision,  of  swiftness  of  handling  with  complete- 
ness of  effect,  it  reminds  you  of  the  later  magic  of 
Rembrandt  and  the  looser  and  richer,  the  less 
artful-seeming  but  more  ample  and  sumptuous,  of 
the  styles  of  Shakespeare.  And  the  matter  is 
worthy  of  the  manner.  Everywhere  are  greatness 
/tud  a  high  imagination  moving  at  ease  in  the  gold 


166  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

armour  of  an  heroic  style.  There  are  passages 
in  Demeter  and  Persephone  tliat  will  vie  with 
the  best  in  Lucretius ;  Miriam  is  worth  a  wilder- 
ness of  Aylmer's  Fields ;  Owd  Rod  is  one  of  the 
best  of  the  studies  in  dialect ;  in  Ilappy  there 
are  stanzas  that  recall  the  passion  of  Rispah ; 
nothing-  in  modern  English  so  thrills  and  vibrates 
with  the  prophetic  inspiration,  the  fury  of  the  seer, 
as  Vastness ;  the  verses  To  Mary  Boyle — (in  the 
same  stanza  as  Musset's  le  Mie  Prigioni) — are 
marked  by  such  a  natural  grace  of  form  and  such 
a  winning  '  affectionateness '  to  coin  a  word  of  in- 
tention and  accomplishment  as  Lord  Tennyson  has 
never  surpassed  nor  very  often  equalled.  In  Vast- 
ness the  insight  into  essentials,  the  command  of 
primordial  matter,  the  capacity  of  vital  sugges- 
tion, are  gloriously  in  evidence  from  the  first 
line  to  the  last.  Here  is  no  touch  of  ingenuity, 
no  trace  of  '  originality,'  no  single  sign  of  clever- 
ness ;  the  rhymes  are  merely  inevitable — there  is 
no  visible  transformation  of  metaplior  in  deference 
to  their  suggestions  ;  nothing  is  antic,  peculiar, 
superfluous ;  but  here  in  epic  unity  and  complete- 
ness, here  is  a  sublimation  of  experience  expressed 
by  means  of  a  sublimation  of  style.  It  is  unique 
in  English,  and  for  all  that  one  can  see  it  is  like 
to  remain  unique  this  good  while  yet.  The  im- 
pression you  take  is  one  of  singular  loftiness  of 
purpose  and  a  rare  nobility  of  mind.  Looking 
upon  life  and  time  and  the  spirit  of  man  from  the 


TENNYSON  157 

heights  of  his  eighty  years,  it  has  been  given  to 
the  Master  Poet  to  behold  much  that  is  hid  to  them 
in  the  plain  or  on  the  slopes  beneath  him^  and 
beholding  it  to  frame  and  utter  a  message  so  lofty 
in  style  and  in  significance  so  potent  that  it  sounds 
as  of  this  world  indeed  but  from  the  confines  of 
experience,  the  farthest  kingdoms  of  mortality. 


It  is  to  note,  too,  that  the  Laureate  of  to-day 
deals  with  language  in  a  way  that  to  the  Tenny- 
son of  the  beginning  was — unhappily 

— impossible.       In  those  early   years    ,,  , . 

Mastership 
he  neither  would  nor  could  have  been 

responsible    for  the   magnificent    and   convincing 

rhythms  of  Vastness,   the  austere  yet   passionate 

shapeliness  of  Happy,   the   effects  of  vigour  and 

variety  realised  in  Parnassus.     For  in  those  early 

years  he  was  rather  Benvenuto  than  Michelangelo, 

he  was  more  of  a  jeweller  than  a  sculptor,  the  phrase 

was  too  much  to  him,  the  inspiration  of  the  incorrect 

too  little.     All  that  is  changed,  and  for  the  best. 

Most  interesting  is  it  to  the  artist  to  remark  how 

iinj)atieut — (as  the  Milton  of  the  Agonistes  was) — of 

rhyme  and  how  confident  in  rhythm  is  the  whilome 

poet  of  Oriana  and  The  Lotus-Eaters  and  The  Vision 

of  Sin;  and  how  this  impatience  and  this  confidence 

are  revealed  not  merely  in  a  piece  of  mysticism 

naked  yet  unashamed  as  The  Gk'am — (whose  move- 


158  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

ment  witli  its  constancy  in  double  endings  and 
avoidance  of  trij)lets  is  perhaps  a  little  tame) — • 
but  also  in  what  should  have  been  a  popular  piece  : 
the  ode,  to  wit,  On  the  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria. 
In  eld,  indeed,  the  craftsman  inclines  to  play  with 
his  material  :  he  is  conscious  of  mastery ;  he  is  in 
the  full  enjoyment  of  his  own ;  he  indulges  in 
experiments  which  to  him  are  as  a  crown  of  glory 
and  to  them  that  come  after  him — to  the  noodles 
that  would  walk  in  his  ways  without  first  preparing 
themselves  by  prayer  and  study  and  a  life  of 
abnegation — are  only  the  devil  in  disguise.  The 
Rembrandt  of  The  Syndics,  the  Shakespeare  of  The 
Tempest  and  Lear — what  are  these  but  pits  for  the 
feet  of  the  Young  Ass  ?  and  what  else  will  be  the 
Tennyson  of  Vastness  and  The  Gleam}  '^Lord,' 
quoth  Dickens  years  ago  in  respect  of  the  Idylls 
or  of  Maud,  '  what  a  pleasure  it  is  to  come  across  a 
'  man  that  can  write  ! '  He  also  was  an  artist  in 
words ;  and  what  he  said  then  he  would  say  now 
with  greater  emphasis  and  more  assurance.  From 
the  first  Lord  Tennyson  has  been  an  exemplar ; 
and  now  in  these  new  utterances,  his  supremacy 
is  completely  revealed.  There  is  no  fear  now  tliat 
*A11  will  grow  the  flower.  For  all  have  got  the 
*  seed ' ;  for  then  it  was  a  mannerism  that  people 
took  and  imitated,  and  now — !  Now  it  is  art; 
it  is  the  greater  Shakespeare,  the  consummate 
Rembrandt,  the  unique  Velasquez ;  and  they  may 
rise  to  it  that  can. 


GORDON   HAKE 

Dr.  Hake  is  one  of  the  most  earnest  and  original 
of  poets.  He  has  taken  nothing  from  his  contem- 
poraries, but  has  imagined  a  message 

for  himself,  and  has  chosen  to  deliver     ^     . 

.     .  Equipment 

it  in  terms  that  are  wholly  his  own. 

For  him  the  accidents  and  trivialities  of  indi- 
vidualism, the  transitory  and  changing  facts  that 
make  up  the  external  aspect  of  an  age  or  a  char- 
acter, can  hardly  be  said  to  exist.  He  only  con- 
cerns himself  with  absolutes — the  eternal  elements 
of  human  life  and  the  immutable  tides  of  human 
destiny.  It  is  of  these  that  the  stuff  of  his 
message  is  compacted  ;  it  is  from  these  that  its 
essence  is  distilled.  His  talk  is  not  of  Arthur  and 
Guinevere,  nor  Chastelard  and  Atalanta,  nor  Para- 
celsus and  Luria  and  Abt  Vogler;  of  'the  dniwing- 
'  room  and  the  deanery '  he  has  nothing  to  say ; 
nothing  of  the  tendencies  of  Strauss  and  Renan, 
notliing  of  the  New  Renaissance,  nothing  of 
Botticelli,  nor  the  ballet,  nor  the  text  of  Shake- 
speare, nor  the  joys  of  the  book-hunter,  nor  the 
quaintness  of  Queen  Anne,  nor  the  morals  of 
Helen  of  Troy.  To  these  he  prefers  the  mystery 
of  death,    the  significance  of  life,    the  quality  of 


160  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

human  and  divine  love ;  the  hopes  and  fears  ana 
the  joys  and  sorrows  that  are  the  perdurable  stuff 
of  existence,  the  inexhaustible  and  unchanging' 
principles  of  activity  in  man.  Now  it  is  only  to  the 
few  that  reduced  to  their  simplest  expression  tlie 
*  eternal  verities '  are  engaging  and  impressive.  To 
touch  the  many  they  must  be  conveyed  in  human 
terms ;  they  must  be  presented  not  as  impersonal 
abstractions,  not  as  matter  for  the  higher  intelli- 
gence and  the  higher  emotions,  but  as  living, 
breathing,  individual  facts,  vivid  with  the  circum- 
stance of  terrene  life,  quick  with  the  thoughts  and 
ambitions  of  the  hour,  full  charged  with  familiar 
and  neighbourly  associations.  All  this  with  Dr. 
Hake  is  by  no  means  inevitable.  He  loves  to  sym- 
bolise ;  he  does  not  always  care  that  the  symbol 
shall  be  appropriate  and  plain.  Pie  prefers  to  work 
in  allegory  and  emblem  ;  but  he  does  not  always 
see  that,  however  representiitive  to  himself,  his 
emblems  and  his  allegories  may  not  be  altogetlier 
representative  to  the  world.  His  im;igination  is  at 
once  quaint  and  far-reaching — at  once  peculiar  and 
ambitious  ;  and  it  is  often  guilty  of  what  is  recon- 
dite and  remote.  In  his  best  work — in  Old  Souls, 
for  instance,  and  Old  Morality — the  quaintness  is 
merely  decorative :  the  essentials  are  sound  and 
human  enough  to  be  of  lasting  interest  and  to 
have  a  capacity  of  common  application.  Elsewhere 
his  imagery  is  apt  to  become  strange  and  un- 
affecting,  his  fancy  to  work  in  curious  ind  desolate 


GORDON  HAKE  161 

ways,  his  message  to  sound  abstruse  and  strange ; 
and  these  eflFects  too  are  deepened  by  the  qualities 
and  the  merits  of  his  style.  It  is  peculiarly  his 
own,  but  it  is  not  always  felicitous.  There  are 
times  when  it  has  the  true  epic  touch — or  at 
least  as  much  of  it  as  is  possible  in  an  age  of  detail 
and  elaboration ;  there  are  times  when  it  has 
»  touch  of  the  pathetic — when  in  homeliness  of 
phrase  and  triviality  of  rhythm  it  is  hardly  to  be 
surpassed ;  and  there  are  times,  as  in  The  Snake 
Charmer  when,  as  in  certain  pages  in  the  work 
of  Richard  Wagner,  it  is  so  studiously  laboured 
and  so  heavily  charged  with  ornament  and  colour 
as  to  be  almost  pedantic  in  infelicity,  almost  re- 
pellent by  sheer  force  of  superfluous  and  elaborate 
suggestiveness.  Last  of  all,  in  an  epoch  trained 
upon  the  passionate  and  subtle  cadences  of  the 
Laureate  and  the  large-moulded,  ample,  irresistible 
melodies  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  Dr.  Hake  chooses  to 
deal  in  rhythms  of  the  utmost  naivete  and  in 
metrical  forms  that  are  simplicity  itselil 


LANDOR 

To  the  many,  Landor  has  always  been  more  or 
less  unapproachable,  and  has  always  seemed  more 

or  less  shadowy  and  unreal.  To  be- 
Anti-Lanior   gin  with,  he  wrote  for  himself  and 

a  few  others,  and  principally  for  him- 
self. Then,  he  wrote  waywardly  and  unequally  as 
well  as  selfishly ;  he  published  pretty  much  at 
random ;  the  bulk  of  his  work  is  large ;  and  the 
majority  has  passed  him  by  for  writers  more 
accessible  and  work  less  freakish  and  more  com- 
prehensible. It  is  probable  too  that  even  among 
those  who,  inspired  by  natural  temerity  or  the  in- 
temperate curiosity  of  the  general  reader,  have 
essayed  his  conquest  and  set  out  upon  what  has 
been  described  as  'the  Adventure  of  the  Seven 
Volumes  which  are  Seven  Valleys  of  Dry  Bones/ 
but  few  have  returned  victorious.  Of  course  the 
Seven  Volumes  are  a  world.  But  (it  is  objected) 
the  world  is  peculiar  in  pattern,  abounding  in 
antres  vast  and  desarts  idle,  in  gaps  and  preci- 
pices and  '^  manifest  solutions  of  continuity,'  and 
enveloped  in  an  atmosphere  which  ordinary  lungs 


LANDOR  163 

find  now  too  rare  and  now  too  dense  and  too 
anodyne.  Moreover,  it  is  peopled  chiefly  with 
abstractions :  bearing  noble  and  suggestive  names 
but  all  surprisingly  alike  in  stature  and  feature, 
all  more  or  less  incapable  of  sustained  emotion  and 
even  of  logical  argument,  all  inordinately  addicted 
to  superb  generalities  and  a  kind  of  monumental 
skittishness,  all  expressing  themselves  in  a  style 
whose  principal  characteristic  is  a  magnificent 
monotony,  and  all  apparently  the  outcome  of  a 
theory  that  to  be  wayward  is  to  be  creative,  that 
human  interest  is  a  matter  of  apophthegms  and 
oracular  sentences,  and  that  axiomatic  and  drama 
tic  are  identical  qualities  and  convertible  terms. 
This  is  the  opinion  of  those  adventurers  in  whom 
defeat  has  generated  a  sense  of  injury  and  an  instinct 
of  antagonism.  Others  less  fortunate  still  have 
found  Landor  a  continent  of  dulness  and  futility — 
have  come  to  consider  the  Seven  Volumes  as  so 
many  aggregations  of  tedium.  Such  experiences 
are  one-sided  and  partial  no  doubt ;  and  considered 
from  a  certain  point  of  view  they  seem  worthless 
enough.  But  they  exist,  and  they  are  in  some  sort 
justified,  Landor,  when  all  is  said,  remains  a 
writers'  writer ;  and  for  my  part  I  find  it  impossible 
not  to  feel  a  certain  sympathy  with  them  that 
hesitate  to  accept  him  for  anything  else. 


164  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Again,  to  some  of  us  Lander's  imagination  is 
not  only  infeiaor  in  kind  but  poverty-stricken  in 
degree  ;  his  creative  faculty  is  limited 
His  Drama  by  the  reflection  that  its  one  achieve- 
ment is  Landor ;  his  claim  to  considera- 
tion as  a  dramatic  writer  is  negatived  by  the  fact 
that,  poignant  as  are  the  situations  with  which  he 
loved  to  deal,  he  was  apparently  incapable  of  per- 
ceiving their  capacities  :  inasmuch  as  he  has  failed 
completely  and  logically  to  develop  a  single  one  of 
them ;  inasmuch,  too,  as  he  has  never  once 
succeeded  in  conceiving,  much  less  in  picturing, 
such  a  train  of  conflicting  emotions  as  any  one  of 
the  complications  from  which  he  starts  might  be 
supposed  to  generate.  To  many  there  is  notliing 
Greek  about  his  dramatic  work  except  the  absence 
of  stage  directions ;  and  to  these  that  quality  of 
'Landorian  abruptness'  which  seems  to  Mr.  Sidney 
Colvin  to  excuse  so  many  of  its  shortcomings  is 
identical  with  a  certain  sort  of  what  iu  men  ot 
lesser  mould  is  called  stupidity. 


HOOD 

Hood  wrote  much  for  bread,  and  he  wrote  much 

under  pressure  of    all    manner   of    difficulties  — 

want  of  health  and  want  of  money, 

the  hardship  of  exile  and  the  bitter- 

.       -  M  ,  of  Him? 

ness  or  comparative  failure  ;  and  not 

a  little  of  what  he  produced  is  the  merest  jour- 
nalism, here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow.  At  his 
highest  he  is  very  high,  but  it  was  not  given  to 
him  to  enjoy  the  conditions  under  whicli  great  work 
is  produced  :  he  had  neither  peace  of  body  nor 
health  of  mind,  his  life  from  first  to  last  was  a 
struggle  with  sickness  and  misfortune.  How  is 
it  possible  to  maintain  an  interest  in  all  he  wrote 
when  two-thirds  of  it  was  produced  with  duns  at 
the  door  and  a  nurse  in  the  other  room  and  the 
printer's-devil  waiting  in  the  hall  ?  Of  his  admir- 
able courage,  his  fine  temper,  his  unfailing  good- 
ness of  heart,  his  incorruptible  honesty,  it  were 
hard  to  speak  too  highly  ;  for  one  has  but  to  read 
the  story  of  his  life  to  wonder  that  he  should  have 
written  anything  at  all.  At  his  happiest  he  had 
the  gift  of  laugliter ;  at  his  deepest  and  truest  the 
more  precious  gift  of  tears.  But  for  him  there 
were  innumerable  hours  when   the  best  he  could 


1G6  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

aflfect  was  the  hireling's  motley ;  when  his  fun  and 
his  pathos  alike  ran  strained  and  thin ;  when  the 
unique  poet  and  wit  became  a  mere  comic  rhyme- 
ster. Is  it  just  to  his  memory  that  it  should  be 
burdened  with  such  a  mass  of  what  is  already  anti- 
quated? But  one  answer  is  possible.  The  im- 
mortal part  of  Hood  might  be  expressed  into  • 
single  tiny  volume. 


Thackeray  preferred  Hood's  passion  to  his  fun  ; 

and  Thackeray  knew.     Hood  had  an  abundance  of 

,        a  certain  sort  of  wit,  the  wit  of  odd 

J  f  ft  Je  ^"^I'Jfe'CS,  of  remote  yet  familiar  re- 
semblances, of  quaint  conceits  and 
humourous  and  unexpected  quirks.  He  made  not 
epigrams  but  jokes,  sometimes  purely  intellectual 
but  nearly  always  with  the  verbal  quality  as  well. 
The  wonderful  jingle  called  Miss  Kihnansegg — liard 
and  ct)ld  and  glittering  as  the  gold  that  gleams 
in  it — abounds  in  capital  types  of  both.  Ihit  for 
an  example  of  both  here  is  a  stauina  taken  at 
random  from  the  Ode  to  the  Cheat  Unknown : — 

'  Thou  Scottish  Barmecide,  feeding  the  hunger 
Of  curiosity  with  airy  gammon  ; 

Thou  mystery-monger, 
Dealing-  it  out  like  middle  cut  of  salmon 
That  fieople  buy  and  can't  make  head  or  tail  of  it  ' 

and  80  forth,  and  so  forth :   the  flrst  a  specimen 


HOOD  167 

of  oddness  of  analogy — the  joke  intellectual ;  the 
second  a  jest  in  which  the  intellectual  quality  is 
complicated  with  the  verbal.  Of  rarer  merit  are 
that  conceit  of  the  door  which  was  shut  with  such 
a  slam  '  it  sounded  like  a  wooden  d — n,'  and  that 
mad  description  of  the  demented  mariner, — 

'His  head  was  turned,  and  so  he  chewed 
His  pigtail  till  he  died,' — 

which  is  a  pun  as  unexpected  and  imaginative  as 
any  that  exists,  not  excepting  even  Lamb's  re- 
nowned achievement,  the  immortal  '  I  say.  Porter, 
*  is  that  your  own  Hare  or  a  Wig?'  But  us 
a  punster  Hood  is  merely  unsurpassable.  Tlie 
simplest  and  the  most  complex,  the  wildest  and 
the  most  obvious,  the  straightest  and  the  most 
perverse,  all  puns  came  alike  to  him.  The  form 
was  his  natural  method  of  expression.  His  prose 
extravaganzas — even  to  the  delightful  Friend  in 
Need — are  pretty  well  forgotten  ;  his  one  novel  is 
very  hard  to  read  ;  there  is  far  less  in  Up  the  Rhine 
than  in  Humphry  Clinker  after  all ;  we  have  been 
spoiled  for  Lycus  the  Centaur  and  The  Plea  of  the 
Midsummer  Fairies  by  the  rich  and  passionate  verse 
of  the  Laureate,  the  distinction,  and  the  measure 
of  Arnold,  the  sumptuous  diction  and  the  varied 
and  enchanting  music  of  Atalanta  and  Hesperia 
and  Erechtheus.  We  care  little  for  the  old- 
fashioned  whimsicality  of  the  Odes,  and  little  for 
such  an  inimitable  farrago  of  vulgarisms,  such  a 
reductio   ad   absurdum  of  sentiment  and  style,  as 


168  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

2%c  Lost  Child.  But  the  best  of  Hood's  puns  art 
amusing  after  forty  years.  They  are  the  classics 
of  verbal  extravagance,  and  they  are  a  thousand 
times  better  known  than  The  Last  Man,  though 
that  is  a  work  of  genius,  and  almost  as  popular 
as  the  Song  of  the  Shirt,  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  the 
Dream  of  Eugene  Aram  themselves.  By  an  odd 
chance,  too,  the  rhymes  in  which  they  are  set 
have  all  a  tragic  theme.  'Tout  ce  qui  touche  a 
*  la  mort,'  says  Champfleury,  '  est  d'une  gaiete 
'  folle,'  Hood  found  out  that  much  for  himself 
before  Champfleury  had  begun  to  write.  His  most 
riotous  ballads  are  ballads  of  death  and  the  grave. 
Tim  Turpin  does  murder  and  is  hanged 

'  On  Horsham  drop,  and  none  can  say 
He  took  a  drop  too  much ' ; 

Ben  Battle  entwines  a  rope  about  his  melancholy 
neck,  and  for  the  second  time  in  life  enlists  him 
in  the  line;  Young  Ben  expires  of  grief  for  the 
falsehood  of  Sally  Brown  :  Lieutenant  Luff  drinks 
himself  into  his  grave;  John  Day  the  amorous 
coachman, 

'  With  back  too  broad  to  be  conceived 
By  any  narrow  mind,' 

pines  to  nothingness,  and  is  found  heels  uppermost 
in  his  cruel  mistress's  water-butt.  To  Hood,  with 
his  grim  imagination  and  his  strange  fantastic 
humour,  death  was  meat  and  drink.  It  is  aa 
though  he  saw  so  much  of  the  '  execrable  Shape ' 


HOOD  109 

that  at  last  the  pair  grew  friends^  and  grinned 
whenever  they  foregathered  even  in  thought. 


Was  Thackeray  right,  then,  in  resenting  the  waste 

of  Hood's  genius  upon  mere  comicalities  ?    I  think 

he  was  ;  but  only  to  a  certain  point. 

_-      ,  .  ....  His  Immortal 

Hood  was  a  true  poet :  but  it  was  ^ 

■  ^      r  .  <•       ,         Po,rt 

not  until  after  years  of  proof  and 

endeavour  that  he  discovered  the  use  to  which 

his  powers  could  best  be  put  and  the  material  on 

which  they  could  best  be  employed.     He  worked 

hard  and  with  but  partial  success  at  poetry  all 

his  life  long.     He  passed  his  life  in  punning  and 

making  comic  assaults  on  the  Queen's  English ; 

but  he  was  author  all  the  while  of  The  Plea  of  the 

Midsummer  Fairies,  the  Ode  to  Melancholy,  Hero  and 

Leander,  Lycus  the  Centaur,  and  a  score  and  more 

of  lovable  and  moving  ballads ;   and  he  had  won 

himself  a  name  with  two  such  capital  examples  of 

melodrama  as  The  Last  Man  (1826)  and  The  Dream 

of  Eugene  Aram  (1829).     But  as  a  poet  he  profited 

little.     The  public  preferred  him  as  a  buffoon  ;  and 

not  until  his  last  years  (and  then  anonymously)  was 

he  able  to  utter  his  highest  word.     AU  was  made 

ready  against  his  coming — the  age,  the  subject,  the 

public  mind,  the  public  capacity  of  emotion ;  and 

in  The  Song  of  the  Shirt  he  approved  himself  a  great 


170  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

singer.  In  the  days  of  Lycus  the  Cenfaur  and  the 
Midsummer  Fairies  he  could  no  more  have  written 
it  than  the  public  could  have  heeded  had  he 
written.  But  times  were  changed — Dickens  had 
come,  and  the  humanitarian  epoch — and  the  great 
song  went  like  fire.  So,  a  year  or  two  after,  did 
The  Bridge  of  Sighs.  That,  says  Thackeray,  '  was 
*  his  Coruuna,  his  Heights  of  Abraham — sickly, 
'  weak,  wounded,  he  fell  in  the  full  blaze  and  fame 
'  of  that  great  victory.'  Could  he  have  repeated 
it  had  he  lived  ?  Who  knows  ?  In  both  these 
irresistible  appeals  to  the  heart  of  man  the 
material  is  of  equal  value  and  importance  with 
the  form  ;  and  in  poetry  such  material  is  rare. 
A  brace  of  such  songs  is  possible  to  a  poet;  ten 
couples  are  not.  It  is  Hood's  immortality  that  he 
sang  these  two.  Almost  in  the  uttering  they  went 
the  round  of  the  world  ;  and  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  of  them  that  they  will  only  pass  with  the 
language. 


LEVER 

The  story  of  Lever's  life  and  adventures  only 

wants  telling  to  be  as  irresistibly  at- 

T  .         ^'^,  11     .       ^(^^  ^^ 

tractive  as  Lorrequer  s  or  O  M alley  s         r  • .  j 

own.  Born  in  Dublin,  of  an  English 
father  and  an  Irish  mother,  he  lived  to  be  essen- 
tially cosmopolitan  and  a  viveur  of  the  first 
mjignitude.  At  eight  he  was  master  of  his  school- 
master— a  gentleman  given  to  flogging  but  not 
learned  in  Greek,  and  therefore  a  proper  subject 
for  a  certain  sort  of  blackmailing.  He  was  not  an 
industrious  boy ;  but  he  was  apt  and  ready  with 
his  tongue,  he  was  an  expert  in  fencing  and  the 
dance,  he  was  good  at  improvising  and  telling 
stories,  it  is  on  record  that  he  pleaded  and  won 
the  cause  of  himself  and  certain  of  his  schoolmates 
accused  before  a  magistrate  of  riot  and  outrage. 
At  college  he  found  work  for  his  high  spirits  in 
wild  fun  and  the  perpetration  of  practical  jokes. 
He  and  his  chum  Ottiwell,  the  original  of  Frank 
Webber,  behaved  to  their  governors,  teachers, 
and  companions  very  much  as  Charles  O'Malley 
and  the  redoubtable  Frank  behave  to  theirs. 
Lever  was  excellent  at  a  street-ballad,  and  made 
and   sang  them    in   the   rags   of    Rhoudlim,  just 


172  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

as  Frank  Webber  does  ;  and  he  personated 
Cusack  the  surgeon  to  Cusack's  class,  just  as 
Frank  ^V^ebber  personates  the  dean  to  his  class. 
On  the  whole,  indeed,  he  must  have  been  as  game- 
some and  volatile  a  nuisance  as  even  Dublin  has 
endured.  On  leaving  college  he  took  charge  of 
an  emigrant  ship  bound  for  Quebec.  Arrived 
in  Canada,  he  plunged  into  the  backwoods,  was 
affiliated  to  a  tribe  of  Indians,  and  had  to  escape 
like  Bagenal  Daly  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  Then 
he  went  to  Germany,  became  a  student  at 
Gottingen  under  Blumenbach,  was  heart  and 
soul  a  Bursch,  and  had  the  honour  of  seeing 
Goethe  at  Weimar.  His  diploma  gained,  he  went 
to  Clare  to  do  battle  with  the  cholera  and  gather 
materials  for  Harry  Lorrequer.  After  this  he  was 
for  some  time  dispensary  doctor  at  Portstew.irt, 
where  he  met  Prebendary  Maxwell,  the  wild 
parson  who  wrote  Captain  Blake :  so  that  here 
and  now  it  is  natural  to  find  him  leaping  turf- 
carts  and  running  away  from  his  creditors. 
At  Brussels,  where  he  physicked  the  British 
Embassy  and  the  British  tourist,  he  knew  all 
sorts  of  people  —  among  them  Commissioner 
Meade,  the  original  of  Major  Monsoon,  and 
Cardinal  Pecci,  the  original  of  Leo  xiii. — and  saw 
all  sorts  of  life,  and  ran  into  all  sorts  of 
extravagance  :  until  of  a  sudden,  he  is  back  again 
in  the  capital,  editing  the  Dublin  University 
Magazine.     Of  course  he  was  the  maddest  editor 


LEVER  173 

ever  seen.  For  him  cards,  horses,  and  high  living' 
were  not  luxuries  but  necessaries  of  life ;  yet  all 
the  wliile  he  believed  devoutly  in  medicine,  and 
with  his  family  indulged  with  freedom  in  the 
use  of  calomel  and  such  agents.  Presently  he 
abandoned  Ireland  for  the  Continent.  He  took 
his  horses  with  him,  and  astonished  Europe  with 
a  four-iu-haud  of  his  own.  Carlsruhe  knew  him 
well,  as  Belgium  and  the  Rhine  had  known  him. 
He  only  left  the  Reider  Schloss  at  Bregenz  to 
conquer  Italy  ;  and  at  Florence,  Spezzia,  and  finally 
Trieste,  he  shone  like  himself. 


He  was  a  bom  poseur.     His  vanity  made  him 
one  of  the  worst — the  most  excessive — of  talkers  ; 
go  where  he  would  and  do  what  he 
might,  he  was  unhappy   if  the   first 
place  were  another's.     In  all  he  did  he 
was  greedy  to  excel,  and  to  excel  iucontestably. 
Like  his  own  Bagenal  Daly  he  would  have  taken 
the  big  jump  with   the  reins  in  his   mouth   and 
his  hands  tied,  'just  to  show  the  English  Lord- 
*  Lieutenant  how  an  Irish  gentleman  rides.'     He 
was  all  his  life  long  confounding  an  English  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  some  sort ;   for  without  display  he 
would  have  pined  away  .and  died.     At  Templeogue 


174  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

he  lived  at  the  rate  of  £3,000  a  year  on  ati  income 
of  £1,200 ;  at  Brussels  he  kept  open  house  on 
little  or  nothing  for  all  the  wandering  grandees  of 
Europe ;  at  Florence  they  used  to  liken  the 
cavalcade  from  his  house  to  a  procession  from 
Franconi's  ;  he  found  living  in  a  castle  and  spend- 
ing £10  a  day  on  his  horses  the  finest  fun  in  the 
world.  He  existed  hut  to  bewilder  and  dazzle, 
and  had  he  not  been  a  brilliant  and  distinguished 
novelist  he  would  have  been  a  brilliant  and  dis- 
tinguished something  else.  As  he  kept  open  house 
everywhere,  as  he  was  fond  of  every  sort  of  luxury, 
as  he  loved  not  less  to  lend  money  to  his  intimates 
than  to  lose  it  to  them  at  cards,  and  as  he  got  but 
poor  prices  for  his  novels  and  was  not  well  paid 
for  his  consular  services,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
he  managed  to  make  ends  meet. 


Nor  is   it    easy  to    see    how  he  contrived   to 

produce    his    novels.     Pie    was    too    passionately 

addicted  to  society  and  tlie  enjoyment 

or  lire  to  spare  an  instant  rrom  them 
Wrote 

it  he  could  help  it ;  and  the  wonder 

is  not  that  he  should  have  written  so  well   but 

that  he  should  have  written  at  all.     Fortunately 

or  the  other  thing,  his  books  cost  him  no  effort 


LEVER  175 

He  wrote  or  dictated  at  a  ji-allop  and,  his  copy 
once  produced,  had  finished  his  work.  He  ab- 
liorred  revision^  and  while  keenly  sensitive  to 
hlame  and  greedy  of  praise  he  ceased  to  care  for 
his  books  as  soon  as  they  had  left  his  desk.  That 
he  was  not  in  scarce  any  sense  an  artist  is  but  too 
clear.  He  never  worked  on  a  definite  plan  nor 
was  at  any  pains  to  contrive  a  plot ;  he  depended 
on  the  morning's  impressions  for  the  evening's 
task,  and  wrote  Con  Cregan  under  the  immediate 
influence  of  a  travelled  Austrian,  who  used  to  talk 
to  him  every  night  ere  he  sat  down  to  his  story. 
But  he  was  a  wonderful  improvisatore.  He  had 
imagination — (even  romantic  imagination  :  as  the 
episode  of  Menelaus  Crick  in  Con  Cregan  will 
show) — a  keen,  sure  eye  for  character,  incom- 
parable facility  in  composition,  an  inexhaus- 
tible fund  of  shrewdness,  whimsicality,  high 
spirits,  an  admirable  knack  of  dialogue ;  and  as 
consul  at  Spezzia  and  at  Trieste,  as  a  fashion- 
able practitioner  at  Brussels,  as  dispensary  doctor 
on  the  wild  Ulster  coast,  he  was  excellently 
placed  for  the  kind  of  literature  it  was  in  him  to 
produce.  Writing  at  random  and  always  under 
the  spur  of  necessity,  he  managed  to  inform  his 
work  with  extraordinary  vitality  and  charm.  His 
books  were  only  made  to  sell,  but  it  is  like  enough 
that  they  will  also  live,  for  they  are  yet  well 
nigh  as  readable  as  at  first,  and  Nina  and  Kate 
O'Donoghue — (for  instance) — seem  destined  to  go 


176  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

down  to  posterity  as  typical  and  representative 
Had  their  author  taken  art  seriously,  and  devoted 
all  his  energy  to  its  practice,  he  could  scarce  have 
done  moi-e  than  this.  Perhaps,  indeed,  he  would 
not  have  done  so  much.  It  could  never  have  been 
Lorrequer's  to  'build  the  lofty  rhyme.'  It  was 
an  honest  as  well  as  a  brilliant  creature  ;  and  I 
believe  we  should  aU  have  suiFered  if  some  aveng- 
ing chance  had  borne  it  in  upon  him  that  to  be 
really  lofty  your  rhyme  must  of  necessity  be  not 
blown  upwards  like  a  bubble  but  built  in  air  like 
a  cathedral.  He  would,  I  take  it,  have  experi- 
mentalised in  repentance  to  the  extent  of  elaborat- 
ing his  creations  and  chastising  his  style ;  and,  it 
may  be,  he  would  have  contrived  but  to  beggar 
his  work  of  interest  and  correct  himself  of  charm. 
A  respectable  ambition,  no  doubt ;  but  how  much 
better  to  be  the  rough-and-ready  artist  of  Darby 
the  Beast  and  Micky  Free,  the  humane  and  charm- 
ing rattlepate  to  whom  we  owe  Paul  Gosiett  and 
the  excellent  and  pleasing  Potts  ! 


JEFFERIES 

I  LovK  to  tlrink  of  Jefferies  as  a  kind  of  literarj 
Leatherstockiiif?.  His  style,  his  mental  qualities^ 
the  field  he  worked  in,  the  chase  he 
followed,  were  peculiar  to  himself,  and  His  Virtue 
as  he  was  without  a  rival,  so  was  he 
without  a  second.  Reduced  to  its  simplest  ex- 
pression, his  was  a  mind  compact  of  observation  and 
of  memory.  He  writes  as  one  who  watches  always, 
who  sees  everything,  who  forgets  nothing.  As  his 
lot  was  cast  in  country  places,  among  wood  and 
pasturage  and  corn,  by  coverts  teeming  with  game 
and  quick  with  insect  life,  and  as  withal  he  had 
the  hunter's  patience  and  quick-sightedness,  his 
faculty  of  looking  and  listening  and  of  noting  and 
remembering,  his  readiness  of  deduction  and  in- 
sistence of  pursuit — there  entered  gradually  into 
his  mind  a  greater  quantity  of  natural  England,  her 
leaves  and  flowers,  her  winds  and  skies,  her  wild 
things  and  tame,  her  beauties  and  humours  and 
discomforts,  than  was  ever,  perhaps,  the  possession 
of  writing  Briton.  This  property  he  conveyed  to 
his  countrymen  in  a  series  of  books  of  singular 
freshness  and  interest.  The  style  is  too  formal  and 
sober,  the  English  seldom  other  than  homely  and 


178  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

sufficient ;  there  is  overmuch  of  the  reporter  and 
nothing  like  enough  of  the  artist,  the  note  of 
imagination,  the  right  creative  faculty.  But  they 
are  remarkable  books.  It  is  not  safe  to  try  and  be 
beforehand  with  posterity,  but  in  the  case  of  sue! 
works  as  the  Ginnclcccpcr  and  Wild  Life  and  with 
such  a  precedent  as  that  established  by  the  Natural 
History  of  Selborne  such  anticipation  seems  more 
templin;;;  anl  less  hazardous  than  usual.  One  has 
only  to  think  of  some  mediaeval  Jefferies  attached 
to  the  staff  of  Robin  Hood,  and  writing  about 
Needwood  and  Charnwood  as  his  descendant  wrote 
about  the  South  Downs,  to  imagine  an  historical 
document  of  priceless  value  and  inexhaustible  inter- 
est. And  in  years  to  be,  when  the  whole  island  is 
one  vast  congeries  of  streets,  and  the  fox  has  gone 
down  to  the  bustard  and  the  dodo,  and  outside 
museums  of  comparative  anatomy  the  weasel  is  not 
and  the  badger  has  ceased  from  the  face  of  the 
earth,  it  is  not  doulitful  that  the  Gamekeeper  and 
Wild  Life  and  the  Poacher — epitomising,  as  tlioy 
will,  the  rural  England  ot  certain  centuries  before — 
will  be  serving  as  material  and  authority  for  his- 
torical descriptions,  historical  novels,  historical 
epics,  historical  pictures,  and  will  be  honoured  as 
the  most  useful  stuff'  ot  their  kind  in  beiii^. 


RICHARD  JEFFERIES  179 

In   those  first   books  of  his    Jefferies    compels 

attention   by  sheer    freshness    of    matter;    he   i* 

brimful   of    new   facts    and    original 

and  pertinent  observation,    and  tliat       , .    . 

Limitation 
every  one   is   vaguely  familiar   with 

and  interested  in  the  objects  he  is  handling  and 
explaining  serves  but  to  heighten  his  attractive- 
ness. There  are  so  many  wlio  but  know  of  hares 
disguised  as  soup,  of  ants  as  a  people  on  whose 
houses  it  is  not  good  to  sit  down,  of  partridges  as  a 
motive  of  bread  sauce  !  And  Jefferies,  retailing  in 
plain,  useful  English  the  thousand  and  one  curious 
facts  that  make  up  life  for  these  creatures  and 
their  kind — Jefferies  walking  the  wood,  or  track- 
ing the  brook,  or  mapping  out  the  big  tree — is 
some  one  to  be  heeded  with  gratitude.  He  is 
the  Scandalous  Chronicler  of  the  warren  and  tbe 
rookery,  the  newsmonger  and  intelligencer  of 
creeping  tilings,  and  tilings  that  fly,  and  things 
that  run  ;  and  his  confidences,  unique  in  quality 
and  type,  have  tbe  novelty  and  force  of  personal 
revelations.  In  dealing  with  men  and  women,  he 
surrendered  most  of  his  advantage  and  lost  the  best 
part  of  liis  charm.  The  theme  is  old,  the  matter 
well  worn,  the  subject  common  to  us  all ;  and 
most  of  us  care  nothing  for  a  few  facts  more  or 
less  unless  they  be  romantically  conveyed.  Reality 
is  but  the  beginning,  the  raw  material,  of  art ;  and 
it  is  by  the  artist's  aid  and  countenance  that  we  are 
used  to  make  acquaintance  vvitli  our  fellows,  be  tJiey 


180  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

generals  in  cocked  hats  or  mechanics  in  fustian. 
Now  Jefferies  was  not  an  artist,  and  so  beside 
his  stoats  and  hares,  his  pike,  his  rabbits,  and 
his  moles,  his  men  and  women  are  of  little 
moment.  You  seem  to  have  heard  of  them  and 
to  far  better  purpose  from  others ;  you  have  had 
their  aiithor's  facts  presented  elsewhere,  and  that 
in  picturesque  conjunction  with  the  great  eternal 
interests  of  passion  and  emotion.  To  be  aware  of 
such  a  difference  is  to  resent  it ;  and  accordingly 
to  read  is  to  know  tliat  Jefferies  would  have  done 
well  to  leave  Ilodge  and  Hodge's  masters  alone 
and  keep  to  his  beasts  and  birds  and  fishes. 


Is  it  not  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face  that  his 
admirers  admire  him  iiijudiciously .''      It  is  true, 

for  instance,  that  he  is  in  a  sense. 
The  General    'too  full '  (the  phrase  is  Mr.  Besant's) 

for  the  generality  of  readers.  But 
it  is  also  true  that  he  is  not  nearly  full  enough  : 
that  tliey  look  for  conclusions  while  he  is  bent 
upon  giving  them  only  details ;  that  they  clamour 
for  a  breath  of  inspiration  while  he  is  bent  upon 
emptying  his  note-book  in  decent  English  ;  that 
they  persist  in  demanding  a  motive,  a  leading  idea, 
a  justification,  while  he  with  knowledge  crammed 
is  fixed  in  his  resolve  to  tell  them  no  more  than 
that  there  are  milestones  on  the  Dover  Road,  or 


RICHARD  JEFFERIES  18 J 

that  there  are  so  many  nails  of  so  many  shapes 
and  so  many  colours  in  the  pig-sty  at  the  back  of 
Coate  Farm,  They  prefer  '  their  geraniums  in  the 
*  conservatory.'  They  refuse,  in  any  case,  to 
call  a  *  picture '  that  which  is  only  a  long-drawn 
sequence  of  statements.  They  are  naturally  in- 
artistic, but  they  have  the  tradition  of  a  long  and 
speaking  series  of  artistic  results,  and  instinctively 
they  decline  to  recognise  as  art  the  work  of  one 
who  was  plainly  the  reverse  of  an  artist.  The  artist 
is  he  who  knows  how  to  select  and  to  inspire 
the  results  of  his  selection.  Jefferies  could  do 
neither.  He  was  a  reporter  of  genius ;  and  he 
never  got  beyond  reporting.  To  the  average 
reader  he  is  wanting  in  the  great  essentials  of 
excitement :  he  is  prodigal  of  facts,  and  he  con- 
trives to  set  none  down  so  as  to  make  one  believe 
in  it  for  longer  than  the  instant  of  perusal.  From 
his  work  the  passionate  human  quality  is  not  less 
absent  than  the  capacity  of  selection  and  the  gift 
of  inspiration,  and  all  the  enthusiasm  of  all  the 
enthusiasts  of  an  enthusiastic  age  will  not  make 
him  and  his  work  acceptable  to  the  aforesaid  average 
reader.  In  letters  he  is  as  the  ideal  British  water- 
colourist  in  paint :  the  care  of  both  is  not  art  but 
facts,  and  again  facts,  and  facts  ever.  You  consider 
their  work  ;  you  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees  ; 
and  you  are  fain  to  conclude  that  themselves  were 
so  much  interested  in  the  trees  they  did  not  eveu 
know  the  wood  was  there. 


132  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

To  come  to  an  end  with  the  man  : — his  range 
was    very    limited,    and    within    that    range    his 

activity  was  excessive ;  yet  the  con- 
La*^  Words    sequences  of  his  enormous  effort  were 

—  and  are  —  a  trifle  disappointing. 
He  thought,  poor  fellow  !  that  he  had  the  world 
in  his  hand  and  the  puhlic  at  his  feet;  whereas, 
the  truth  to  tell,  he  had  only  the  empire  of  a 
kind  of  hack  garden  and  the  lordship  of  (as  JNIr. 
Besant  has  told  us)  some  forty  thousand  out  of  a 
hundred  millions  of  readers.  You  know  tliat  he 
suffered  greatly  ;  you  know  too  that  to  the  last  he 
worked  and  battled  on  as  became  an  honest,  much- 
enduring,  self-admiring  man,  as  you  know  that  in 
death  he  snatched  a  kind  of  victory,  and  departed 
this  life  with  dignity  as  one  '  good  at  many  things,' 
who  had  at  last  'attained  to  be  at  rest.'  You 
know,  in  a  word,  that  he  took  his  part  in  the 
general  struggle  for  existence,  and  manfully  did 
his  best ;  and  it  is  with  something  like  a  pang  that 
you  find  his  biograjjher  insisting  on  the  merits  of 
the  feat,  and  quoting  ai)provingly  the  sentimen- 
talists who  gathered  about  his  death-bed.  To 
make  eloquence  about  heroism  is  not  the  way  to 
l)reed  heroes;  and  it  may  be  that  Jcfferies,  had  his 
last  environment  been  less  fluent  and  sonorous, 
would  now  seem  something  more  lieroic  than  he 
does. 


GAY 

Gay  the  fabulist  is  only  interesting'  in  a  certain 

sense  and  to  a  small  extent.     The  morality  of  the 

Fables  is  commonplace ;   their  work- 

manship  is  only  facile  and  ai;rreeable  :       „  ,    ,.  . 
^  •  .  .  Fabulist 

as   literature — as    achievements   in   a 

certain  order  of  art — they  have  a  poor  enough  kind 
of  existence.  In  comparison  to  the  work  of  La  Fon- 
taine they  are  the  merest  journalism.  The  simpli- 
city, the  wit,  the  wisdom,  the  humanity,  the  dramatic 
imagination,  the  capacity  of  dramatic  expression, 
the  exquisite  union  of  sense  and  manner,  the  fault- 
less balance  of  matter  and  style,  are  qualities  for 
which  in  the  Englishman  you  look  in  vain.  You 
read,  and  you  read  not  only  without  enthusiasm 
but  without  interest.  The  verse  is  merely  brisk 
and  fluent;  the  invention  is  common;  the  wit 
is  not  very  witty  ;  the  humour  is  artificial ;  the 
wisdom,  the  morality,  the  knowledge  of  life,  the 
science  of  character — if  they  exist  at  all  it  is  but 
as  anatomical  preparations  or  plants  in  a  hortus 
siccus.  Worse  than  anything,  the  Fables  are 
monotonous.  The  manner  is  consistently  uniform ; 
the  invention  has  the  level  sameness  of  a  Lincoln- 
shire landscape  ;  the  narrative  moves  with  the  equal 


184  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

pace  of  boats  on  a  Dutch  canal.  The  effect  is  that 
of  a  host  of  flower-pots,  the  columns  in  a  ledger, 
a  tragedy  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Home ;  and  it  is  heiglit- 
ened  by  the  matchless  triteness  of  the  fabulist's 
reflections  and  the  uncommon  tameness  of  his 
drama.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  this  is  indeed 
the  Gay  of  Polly  and  The  Beggars'  Opera.  I'rue,  the 
dialects  of  his  Peachum  and  his  Lockit  are  in  some 
sort  one;  his  gentlemen  of  the  road  and  his  ladies  of 
the  kennel  rejoice  in  a  common  flippancy  of  expres- 
sion ;  there  is  little  to  choose  between  the  speecli  of 
Polly  and  the  speech  of  Lucy.  But  in  respect  of  the 
essentials  of  drama  the  dialogue  of  the  Beggars'  Opera 
is  on  the  whole  suflicient.  The  personages  are  pup- 
pets ;  but  they  are  individual,  and  they  are  fairly 
consistent  in  their  individuality.  Miss  Lockit  does 
not  think  and  feel  like  Miss  Diver  ;  Macheath  is 
distinguishable  from  Peachum ;  none  is  exactly 
alive,  but  of  stage  life  all  have  their  share.  Tlie 
reverse  of  this  is  the  case  with  the  personages  of  the 
Fables.  They  think  the  thouglits  and  speak  tlie 
speech  of  Mr.  Gay.  The  elephant  has  the  voice 
of  the  sparrow ;  the  monkey  is  one  with  the 
organ  on  which  he  sits;  there  is  but  a  difl'erence 
of  name  between  the  eagle  and  the  hog ;  the 
fcilk  of  Death  has  exactly  the  manner  and  weiglit 
and  cadence  of  the  Woodman's ;  a  change  of 
label  would  enable  the  lion  to  change  places 
with  the  spaniel,  would  suffice  to  cage  the  wolf 
as  a  bird  and    set  free   the  parrot  as  a  beast  of 


GAY  185 

prey.  All  are  equally  pert,  brisk,  and  dapper  in 
expression  ;  all  are  equally  sententious  and  smart 
in  aim;  all  are  absolutely  identical  in  function 
and  effect.  The  whole  gathering  is  stuffed  with  the 
same  straw,  prepared  with  the  same  dressing, 
ticketed  in  the  same  handwriting,  and  painted  with 
the  same  colours.  Any  one  who  remembers  the 
infinite  variety  of  La  Fontaine  will  feel  that  Gay 
the  fabulist  is  a  writer  whose  work  the  world  has 
let  die  very  willingly  indeed. 


And  Gay  is  not  a  whit  less  inefficient  as  a 
moralist.  He  is  a  kindly  soul,  and  in  his  easy- 
going way   he   has   learnt   something 

of  the  tricks  of  the  world  and  some- 

Moralidt 
thing   of   the    hearts    of    men.      He 

writes  as  an  unsuccessful  courtier ;  and  in  that 
capacity  he  has  remarks  to  offer  which  are  not 
always  valueless,  and  in  which  there  is  some- 
times a  certain  shrewdness.  But  the  unsuccessful 
courtier  is  on  the  whole  a  creature  of  the  past. 
Such  interest  as  he  has  is  rather  historical  than 
actual ;  and  neither  in  the  nursery  nor  in  the 
schoolroom  is  he  likely  to  create  any  excitement 
or  be  received  with  any  enthusiasm.  To  the  world 
he  can  only  recommend  himself  as  one  anxious  to 


186  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

make  it  known  on  the  smallest  provocation  and  ca 
any  occasion  or  none  that  Queen  Anne  is  dead. 
Open  him  where  you  will,  and  you  find  him  full 
of  this  important  news  and  determined  on  impart- 
ing it.     Thus,  in  The  Scold  and  the  Parrot : 

'One  slander  must  ten  thousand  get, 
The  world  with  int'rest  pays  the  debt' ; 

that  is  to  say,  Queen  Anne  is  dead.  Thus,  too,  in 
The  Persian,  the  Sun,  and  the  Cloud  : 

'  The  gale  arose  ;  the  vapour  tost 
(The  sport  of  winds)  in  air  was  lost ; 
The  glorious  orb  the  day  refines. 
Thus  envy  breaks,  thus  merit  shines '  ; 

in  The  Goat  witlwut  a  Beard  : 

'  Coxcombs  distinguished  from  the  rert 
To  all  but  coxcombs  are  a  jest ' ; 

in  The  Shepherd's  Dog  and  the  Wolf: 

'  An  open  foe  may  prove  a  curse, 
But  a  pretended  friend  is  worse '  ; 

and  so  to  tlie  end  of  tlie  chapter.  The  theme  is 
not  absorbing,  and  the  variations  are  proper  to  the 
theme. 


How  long  is  it  that  the  wise  and  good  have  ceased 
to  say  (striking  their  pensive  bosoms),  '  Here  lies 


GAY  187 

*  Gay  *  ?    It  is — how  long  ?     But  for  all  that  Gay  is 
yet  a  figure  in  English  letters.     As  a  song-writer 
he  has  still  a  claim  on  us^  and  is  still 
able  to  touch  the  heart  and  charm  the     After  All 
ear.      The  lyrics  in  Ads  and  Galatea 
are  not  unworthy  their  association  with  Handel's 
immortal  melodies,  the  songs  in  The  Beggars'  Opera 
have  a  part  in  the  life  and  fame  of  the  sweet  old 
tunes  from  wliich  they  can  never  be  divided.     I 
like  to  believe  that  in  the  operas  and  the  Trivia 
and  The  Shepherd's  Week  is  buried  the  material  of 
a  pleasant  little  book. 


ESSAYS   AND   ESSAYISTS 

It  is  our  misfortune  that  of  good  essayists  there 

should  be  but  few.      Men  there  have  been  who 

„  have  done  the  essayist's  part  so  well 

The  Good  ^     .  A  •         ^v. 

^  ^,  as    to   have   earned    an    immortality 

of  Them      .         ,        ,  .  ,  ,  ,     , 

in     the    doing ;     but    we    have    had 

not  many   of  them,   and  they   make   but  a  poor 

figure   on  our  shelves.     It  is  a  pity  that  things 

should  be  thus  with  us,  for  a  good  essayist  is  the 

pleasantest  companion  imaginable.     There  are  folk 

in  plenty  who  have  never  read  Montaigne  at  all ; 

but  there  are  few  indeed  who  have  read  but  a  page 

of  him,  and  that  page  but  once.     And  the  same 

may  be  said  of  Addison  and  Fielding,  of  Lamb  and 

Hazlitt,  of  Sterne  and  Bacon  and  Ben  Jonson,  and 

all  the  meml>ers  of  their  goodly  fellowship.       To 

sit  down  with  any  one  of  them  is  to  sit  down  in 

the   company    of  one   of   the  '  mighty   wits,    our 

'  elders  and  our  betters,'  who  have  done  much  to 

make  literature  a  good  thing,  having  written  books 

that  are  eternally  readable.      If  of  all  them  that 

have   tried  to  write  essays  and  succeeded  after  a 

fashion  a  twentieth  part  so  much  could  be  said 

the  world  would  have  a  conversational  literature 

of  inexhaustible    interest.      But   indeed   there   is 


ESSAYS  AND  ESSAYISTS  189 

nothing    of   the    sort.       Beside    the    'rare  and 

'  radiant'    masters    of    the    art    there    are  the 
apprentices,  and  these  are  many  and  dull. 


Essayists,  like  poets,  are  born  and  not  made, 
and  for  one  worth  remembering  the  world  is  con- 
fronted with  a  hundred  not  worth 
reading.  Your  true  essayist  is  in  a  Generalitiet 
literary  sense  the  friend  of  everybody. 
As  one  of  the  brotherhood  has  phrased  it,  it  is  his 
function  '  to  speak  with  ease  and  opportunity  to  all 
*  men.'  He  must  be  personal,  or  his  hearers  can 
feel  no  manner  of  interest  in  him.  He  must  be 
candid  and  sincere,  or  his  readers  presently  see 
through  him.  He  must  have  learned  to  think  for 
himself  and  to  consider  his  surroundings  with  an 
eye  that  is  both  kindly  and  observant,  or  they 
straightway  find  his  company  unprofitable.  He 
should  have  fancy,  or  his  starveling  propositions 
will  perish  for  lack  of  metaphor  and  the  tropes 
and  figures  u«eded  to  vitalise  a  truism.  He  does 
well  to  have  humour,  for  humour  makes  men 
brothers,  and  is  perhaps  more  influential  in  an 
essay  than  in  most  places  else.  He  will  find  a  little 
wit  both  serviceable  to  himself  and  comfortable  to 
his   readers.      For   wisdom,    it    is   not  absolutely 


190  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

necessary  that  he  have  it,  but  in  its  way  it  is  aa 
good  a  property  as  any :  used  with  judgment, 
indeed,  it  does  more  to  keep  an  essay  sweet  and 
fresh  than  almost  any  other  quality.  And  in 
default  of  wisdom — which,  to  be  sure,  it  is  not 
given  to  every  man,  much  less  to  every  essayist, 
to  entertain — he  need  have  no  scruples  about 
using  whatever  common  sense  is  his ;  for  com- 
mon sense  is  a  highly  respectable  commodity, 
and  never  fails  of  a  wide  and  eager  circle  of 
buyers.  A  knowledge  of  men  and  of  books  is  also 
to  be  desired ;  for  it  is  a  writer's  best  reason  of 
being,  and  without  it  he  does  well  to  hold  his 
tongue.  Blessed  with  these  attributes  he  is  an 
essayist  to  some  purpose.  Give  him  leisure  and 
occasion,  and  his  discourse  may  well  become  as 
popular  as  Montaigne's  own. 


For  the  British  essayists,  they  are  more  talked 

about  than  known.     It  is  to  be  suspected  that  from 

the  first  their  reputation  has  greatly 
In 
_  ,         exceeded  their  popularity  :  and  of  late 

Particular 

years,  in  spite  of  the  declamation  of 

Macaulay  and  the  very  literary  enthusiasm  oi  the 

artist  of  Esmond  and    The   Virginians,  they  have 

fallen  further  into  the  background,  and  are  less 


ESSAYS  AND  ESSAYISTS  191 

than  ever  studied  with  regard.  In  theory  the  age 
of  Anne  is  still  the  Augustan  age  to  us ;  but  in 
theory  only,  and  only  to  a  certain  extent.  What 
attracts  us  is  its  outside.  We  are  in  love  with  its 
houses  and  its  china  and  its  costumes.  We  are 
not  enamoured  of  it  as  it  was  hut  as  it  seems 
to  Mr.  Caldecott  and  Mr.  Dobson  and  Miss  Kate 
Greenaway.  We  care  little  for  its  comedy  and 
nothing  at  all  for  its  tragedy.  Its  verse  is  all  that 
our  own  is  not,  and  the  same  may  he  said  of  its 
prose  and  ours — of  the  prose  of  Mr.  Swinburne  and 
Mr.  George  Meredith  and  the  prose  of  Addison 
and  Swift.  Mr.  Gladstone  is  not  a  bit  like  Boling- 
broke,  and  between  The  Times  and  The  Taller, 
between  The  Spectator  (Mr.  Addison's),  and  The 
Fortnightly  Review,  there  is  a  difference  of  close 
upon  two  centuries  and  of  a  dozen  revolutions — 
political,  social,  scientific,  and  aesthetic.  We  may 
babble  as  we  please  about  the  '  sweetness '  of  Steele 
and  the  '  humour '  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  but 
in  our  hearts  we  care  for  them  a  great  deal  less 
than  we  ought,  and  in  fact  Mr.  Mudie's  sub- 
scribers do  not  hesitate  to  prefer  the  *  sweetness  * 
of  Mr.  Black  and  the  'humour'  of  Mr.  James 
Payn.  Our  love  is  not  for  the  essentials  ot  the 
time  but  only  its  accidents  and  oddities  ;  and  we 
express  it  in  pictures  and  poems  and  fantasies  in 
architecture,  and  the  canonisation  (in  figures)  of 
Chippendale  and  Sheraton.  But  it  is  question- 
able if  we   might    not   with    advantage  increase 


192  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

our  interest,  and  carry  imitation  a  little  deeper. 
The  Essayists,  for  instance,  are  often  dull,  but 
they  write  like  scholars  and  gentlemen.  They 
refrain  from  personalities  ;  they  let  scandal  alone, 
nor  ever  condescend  to  eavesdropping ;  they  never 
go  out  of  their  way  in  search  of  affectation  or 
prurience  or  melancholy,  but  are  content  to  be 
merely  wise  and  cheerful  and  humane.  Above  all, 
they  do  their  work  as  well  as  they  can.  They 
seem  to  write  not  for  bread  nor  for  a  place  in 
society  but  for  the  pleasure  of  writing,  and  ot 
writing  well.  In  these  hysterical  times  life  is  so 
full,  so  much  is  asked  and  so  much  has  to  be 
given,  that  tranquil  writing  and  careful  workman- 
ship are  impossible.  A  certain  poet  has  bewailed 
the  change  in  a  charming  rondeau  : — 

'  More  swiftly  now  the  hours  take  flight  1 
What 's  read  at  morn  is  dead  at  night ; 
Scant  space  have  we  for  art's  delaj'S, 
Whose  breathless  thought  so  brieliy  stays, 
We  may  not  work — ah  !  would  we  might, 
With  slower  pen  1' 

It  must  be  owned  that  his  melancholy  is  anything 
but  groundless.  The  trick  of  amenity  and  good 
breeding  is  lost ;  the  graces  of  an  excellence  that 
is  unobtrusive  are  graces  no  more.  We  write  as 
men  paint  for  the  exhibitions  :  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  we  must  pass  without  notice  if  we  do  not 
exceed  in  colour  and  subject  and  tone.  The  need 
exists,  and  the  world  bows  to  it.  Mr.  Austin  Dob- 
son's  little  sheaf  of  Eighteenth  Century  Essays  might 


ESSAYS  AND  ESSAYISTS  193 

be  regarded  as  a  protest  against  the  necessity  and 
the  submission.  It  proves  that  'tis  possible  to  be 
eloquent  without  adjectives  and  elegant  without 
affectation ;  that  to  be  brilliant  you  need  not 
necessarily  be  extravagant  and  conceited ;  that 
without  being  maudlin  and  sentimental  it  is 
not  beyond  mortal  capacity  to  be  pathetic ;  and 
that  once  upon  a  time  a  writer  could  prove  him- 
self a  humourist  witliout  feeling  it  incumbent 
upon  him  to  be  also  a  jack-pudding. 


BOSWELL 

It  has  been  Boswell's  fate  to  be  universally  read 
and  almost  as   universally  despised.      What    he 

suffered  at  the  hands  of  Croker  and 
His  Destiny   Macaulay  is  typical  of  his  fortune. 

In  character,  in  politics,  in  attain- 
ments, in  capacity,  the  two  were  poles  apart ;  but 
they  were  agreed  in  this  :  that  Boswell  must  be 
castigated  and  contemned,  and  that  they  were  the 
men  to  do  it.  Croker's  achievement,  consider  it 
how  you  will,  remains  the  most  preposterous  in 
literary  history.  He  could  see  nothing  in  the 
Life  but  a  highly  entertaining  compilation  greatly 
in  need  of  annotation  and  correction.  Accordingly 
he  took  up  Boswell's  text  and  interlarded  it  with 
scraps  of  his  own  and  other  people's ;  he  pegged  into 
it  a  sophisticated  version  of  the  Tour ;  and  he  over- 
whelmed his  amazing  compound  with  notes  and 
commentaries  in  wliich  he  took  occasion  to  snub, 
scold,  'improve,'  and  insult  his  author  at  every 
turn.  What  came  of  it  one  knows.  Macaulay, 
in  the  combined  interests  of  Whiggism  and  good 
literature,  made  Boswell's  quarrel  his  own,  and 
the  expiation  was  as  bitter  as  the  offence  was 
wanton  and  scandalous. 


BOSWELL  195 

But  Macaulay,  if  he  did  Jeddart  justice  ot; 
Croker,  took  care  not  to  forget  that  Johnson  was 
a  Tory  hero,  and  that  Boswell  was 
Johnson's  biographer.  He  was  too  His  Critic 
fond  of  good  reading  not  to  esteem 
the  lAfe  for  one  of  the  best  of  books.  But  he  was 
also  a  master  of  the  art  of  brilliant  and  picturesque 
misrepresentation ;  and  he  did  not  neglect  to 
prove  that  the  Life  is  only  admirable  because 
Boswell  was  contemptible.  It  was,  he  argued, 
only  by  virtue  of  being  at  once  daft  and  drunken, 
selfish  and  silly,  an  eavesdropper  and  a  talebearer, 
a  kind  of  inspired  Faddle,  a  combination  of  butt 
and  lackey  and  snob,  that  Boswell  contrived  to 
achieve  his  wretched  immortality.  And  in  the  same 
way  Boswell's  hero  was  after  all  but  a  sort  of 
Grub  Street  Cyclops,  respectable  enough  by  his 
intelligence — (but  even  so  ridiculous  in  com- 
parison to  gifted  Whigs) — yet  more  or  less 
despicable  in  his  manners,  his  English,  and 
his  politics.  Now,  Macaulay  was  the  genius  of 
special  pleading.  Admirable  man  of  letters  as  he 
was,  he  was  politician  first  and  man  of  letters 
afterwards  :  his  judgments  are  no  more  final  than 
his  antitheses  are  dull,  and  his  method  for  all  its 
brilliance  is  the  reverse  of  sound.  AV'hen  you 
begin  to  inquire  how  much  he  really  knew  about 
Boswell,  and  how  far  you  may  accept  his  own 
estimate  of  his  own  pretensions,  he  becomes 
amusing  in  spite  of  himself:  much  as,  according 


196  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

to  him,  Boswell  was  an  artist.  In  his  review 
of  Croker  he  is  keen  enough  about  dates  and 
facts  and  solecisms ;  on  questions  of  this  sort 
he  bestows  his  fiercest  energies ;  for  such  lapses 
he  visits  his  Tory  opposite  with  his  most  savage 
and  splendid  insolence,  his  heartiest  contempt,  his 
most  scathing  rhetoric.  But  on  the  great  question 
of  all — the  corruption  of  Boswell's  text — he  is 
not  nearly  so  implacable,  and  concerning  the 
foisting  on  the  Life  of  the  whole  bulk  of  the  Tour 
he   is   not  more  than   lukewarm.      'We   greatly 

*  doubt,'  he  says,  'whether  even  the  Tour  to  the 

*  Hebrides  should  have  been  inserted  in  the  midst 

*  of  the  Life.     There   is   one  marked  distinction 

*  between  the  two  works.  Most  of  the  Tour  was 
'  seen  by  Johnson  in  manuscript.  It  does  not 
'  appear  that  he  ever  saw  any  part  of  the  Life.' 
This  is  to  say  that  Croker's  action  is  reprehensible 
not  because  it  is  an  ofyence  jigainst  art  but 
because  Johnson  on  jirivate  and  personal  grounds 
might  not  have  been  disposed  to  accept  the  Life 
as  representative  and  just,  and  might  have  re- 
fused to  sanction  its  appearance  on  an  equal 
footing  with  the  Tour,  which  on  private  and  per- 
sonal grounds  he  had  accepted.  In  the  face 
of  such  an  argument  who  can  help  suspecting 
Macaulay's  artistic  faculty.''  'The  Life  of  Johihson,' 
he  says,  '  is  assuredly  a  great,  a  very  great,  book. 
'  Homer  is  not  more  decidedly  the  first  of  heroic 

*  poets,  Shakespeare  is  not  more  decidedly   the 


BOSWELL  197 

•  first  of  dramatists,  Demosthenes  is  not  mora 
'  decidedly   the    first    of    orators,   than    Boswell 

*  is  tlie  first  of  biographers  ....  Eclipse  is 
'  fii-st,  and  the  rest  nowhere.'  That  is  hearty 
and  exact  enough.  But,  as  I  have  hinted,  Mao- 
aulay,  furious  with  Croker's  carelessness,  is  almost 
tolerant  of  Croker's  impudence.  For  Croker  as 
a  scholar  and  an  historian  he  is  merely  pitiless ; 
to  Croker  ruining  the  Life  by  the  insertion  of 
the  Tour — a  feat  which  would  scarce  be  sur- 
passed by  the  interpolation  of  the  Falstaff  scenes 
of  the  Merry  Wives  in  one  or  other  of  the  parts 
of  Henry  IV. — he  is  lenient  enough,  and  lenient 
on  grounds  which  are  not  artistic  but  purely 
moral.  Did  he  recognise  to  the  full  the  fact 
of  Boswell's  pre-eminence  as  an  artist?  Was 
he  really  conscious  that  the  Life  is  an  admirable 
work  of  art  as  well  as  the  most  readable  and 
companionable  of  books.''  As,  not  content  with 
committing  himself  thus  far,  he  goes  on  to  prove 
that  Boswell  was  great  because  he  was  little,  that 
he  wrote  a  great  book  because  he  was  an  ass,  and 
that  if  he  had  not  been  an  ass  his  book  would 
probably  have  been  at  least  a  small  one,  incredulity 
on  these  points  becomes  respectable. 


198  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Boswell  knew  better.      A  true  Scotsman  and  a 

true  artist,  he  could  play  the  fool  on  occasion,  and 

he  could   profit  by  his  folly.     In  his 

Himself  dedication  to  the  first  and  g^reatest 
President  the  Royal  Academy  has  had 
he  anticipates  a  good  many  of  IMacaulay's  objec- 
tions to  his  character  and  deportment,  and  proves 
conclusively  that  if  he  chose  to  seem  ridiculous 
he  did  so  not  unwittingly  but  with  a  complete 
apprehension  of  the  effect  he  designed  and  the 
means  he  adopted.  In  the  Tour,  says  he,  from 
his  'eagerness  to  display  the  wonderful  fertility 
'  and  readiness  of  Johnson's  wit,'  he  'freely 
'  showed  to  the  world  its  dexterity,  even  when  I 
'  was  myself  the  object  of  it.'  He  was  under  the 
impression  that  he  would  be  'liberally  under- 
'  stood,'  as  'knowing  very  well  what  I  was  about.' 
But,  he  adds,  'it  seems  I  judged  t(to  well  of  the 
'  world ' ;  and  he  points  his  moral  with  a  story  of 
'  the  great  Dr.  Clarke,'  who,  '  unbending  himself 

*  with   a  few  frieiuls    in    the   most    playful  and 

*  frolicsome  manner,'  saw  Beau  Nash  in  the 
distance,  and  was  instantly  sobered.  'My  boys,' 
quoth  he,  'let  us  be  grave — here  comes  a  fool.' 
Macaulay  was  not  exactly  Beau  Nash,  nor  was 
Boswell  '  the  great  Dr.  Clarke ' ;  but,  as  Macaulay, 
working  on  Wolcot's  lines,  was  presently  to  show, 
Boswell   did    right  to   describe    the   world   as   'a 

*  great  fool,'  and  to  regret  in  respect  of  his  own 
Billiuess  that  in  the  Tour  he  had  been  '  arrogant 


BOSWELL  199 

*  enouj^h  to  suppose  that  the  tenour  of  the  rest 

*  of  the  book  would  sufficiently  guard  against  such 
'  a  strange  imputation.'  In  the  same  way  he 
showed  himself  fully  alive  to  tlie  enduring  merits 
of  his  achievement.  'I  will  venture  to  say,'  he 
writes,  'that  he  (Johnson)  will  be  seen  in  this 
'  work  more  completely  than  any  man  who  has 
'  ever  lived.'  He  had  his  own  idea  of  biography; 
he  had  demonstrated  its  value  triumphantly  in 
the  Tour  which,  though  organically  complete,  is 
plainly  not  a  record  of  travel  but  a  biographical 
essay.  In  the  Tour,  that  is,  he  had  approved 
himself  an  original  master  of  selection,  composi- 
tion, and  design ;  of  the  art  of  working  a  large 
number  of  essential  details  into  a  uniform  and 
living  whole ;  and  of  that  most  difficult  and  tell- 
ing of  accomplishments,  the  reproduction  of  talk. 
In  the  Life  he  repeated  the  proof  on  a  larger 
scale  and  with  a  finer  mastery  of  construction  and 
effect ;  and  in  what  his  best  editor  describes  as 

*  the  task  of  correcting,  amending,  and  adding  to 

*  his  darling  work '  he  spent  his  few  remaining 
years.  That  he  drifted  into  greatness,  produced 
his  two  masterpieces  unconsciously,  and  developed 
a  genius  for  biography  as  one  develops  a  disease, 
is  '  a  ridiculous  conception,'  as  Mr.  Napier  rightly 
says.  In  proof  of  it  we  have  Boswell's  own 
words,  and  we  have  the  books  themselves.  Such 
testimony  is  not  to  be  overborne  by  any  num- 
ber of  paradoxes,  however  ingenious,  nor  by  any 


200  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

superflux  of  rhetoric,  however  plausible  and  per- 
suasive. That  Boswell  was  a  gossip,  a  busybody, 
and  something  of  a  sot,  and  that  many  did  and 
still  do  call  him  fool,  is  certain ;  but  that  is  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  have  been  an  artist, 
and  none  why  he  should  be  credited  with  the 
fame  of  having  devoted  the  best  part  of  his  life 
to  tlie  production  of  a  couple  of  masterpieces — 
as  M.  Jourdain  talked  prose — without  knowing 
what  he  was  doing.  Turner  chose  to  go  a-mas- 
querading  as  '  Puggy  Booth ' ;  but  as  yet  nobody 
has  put  forward  the  assertion  that  Turner  was 
unconscious  of  the  romance  and  splendour  of  liis 
Ulysses  and  Polyphemus,  or  that  he  painted  his 
Rain,  Speed,  and  Steam  in  absolute  ignorance  of 
the  impression  it  would  produce  and  the  idea  it 
should  convey.  Goldsmith  reminded  Miss  Rejaiolds 
of  'a  low  mech.inic,  particularly  ...  a  journey- 
'  man  tailor';  but  that  he  was  unconsciouf^ly  the 
most  elegant  and  natural  writer  of  his  age  is  a 
position  which  has  not  yet  been  advanced.  Ai::! 
surely  it  is  high  time  tliat  BoswoU.  sliouM  t;ike 
that  place  in  art  which  is  his  by  right  of  con- 
quest, and  that  Macaulay's  paradox — wliich  is  only 
the  opinion  brilliantly  put  of  an  ignorant  and 
untliinking  world — ('  II  avait  mieux  que  personue 
'  I'esjtrit  de  tout  le  monde') — should  go  tlie  way 
of  all  its  kind. 


CONGREVE 

An  American  literary  journal  once  assured  its 
readers  that  Congreve  has  a  '  niche  in  the  Valhalla 
'  of  Ben  Jonson.'    The  remark  is  in- 
judicious, of  course,  even  for  a  liter-  „. 

,     ,         .  Biographers 

ary  American,  and   there  is  no  ap-         ,  ^  .^. 

'  *^     and  Cnttcs 

parent  reason  why  it  should  ever  have 

got  itself  uttered.      It  is  prohably  the  unluckiest 

thing  that  ever  was  said  of  Congreve,  who — with 

some  unimportant  exceptions — has  been  singularly 

fortunate  in  his  critics  and  biographers.     Dryden 

wrote  of  him  with  enthusiasm,  and  in  doing  so  he 

may  be  said  to  have  set  a  fashion  of  admiration 

which  is  vigorous  and  captivating  even  yet.     Swift, 

Voltaire,  Lamb,  Hunt,  Hazlitt,  Thackeray,  Mac- 

aulay,  to  name  but  these,  have  dealt  with  him  in 

their  several  ways ;    of  late  he  has  been  praised 

by  such   masters   of  the  art  of    writing  as  Mr. 

Swinburne  and  Mr.  George  Meredith ;  while  Mr. 

Gosse,  the  last  on  the  list,  surpasses  most  of  his 

predecessors  in  admiration  and  nearly  all,  I  think, 

in  knowledge. 


202  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

It  is  no  fault  of  Mr.  Gosse's  that  with  all  his 
diligence  he  should   fail  to  give  a  complete  and 

striking  portrait  of  his  man,  or  to 

The  Real  ,  r     i.  4.  i.     j        -i 

^  make  more  of  what  he  describes  as 

Congreve  ,         -.    ,  ,  .1 

his    smiling,  faultless  rotundity.     As 

he  puts  it :   '  There  were  no  salient  points  about 

*  Congreve's  character,'  so  that  '  no  vagaries,  no 

*  escapades  place  him  in  a  ludicrous  or  in  a  human 
'  light,'  and  'he  passes  through  the  literary  life 

*  of  his  time  as  if  in  felt  slippers,  noiseless, 
'  unupbraiding,  without  personal  adventures.' 
That,  I  take  it,  is  absolutely  true.  It  is  known 
that  Congreve  was  cheerful,  serviceable,  and 
witty ;  that  he  was  a  man  of  many  friends ;  that 
Pope  dedicated  his  Iliad  to  him ;  that  Drydeii 
loved  and  admired  him  ;  that  Collier  attacked  his 
work,  and  that  his  rejoinder  was  ecjually  spiritless 
and  ill-bred  ;  that  he  was  attached  to  Mrs.  Brace- 
girdle,  and  left  all  his  money  to  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough  ;  that  he  was  a  creditable  Govern- 
ment official ;  and  that  at  thirty,  having  written 
a  certain  number  of  plays,  he  suddenly  lost  his 
interest  in  life  and  art,  and  wrote  no  more.  But 
that  is  about  all.  Thackeray's  picture  of  him  may 
be,  and  probably  is,  as  unveracious  as  his  Fielding 
or  his  Dick  Steele ;  but  there  is  little  or  nothing 
to  show  how  far  we  can  depend  upon  it.  The 
character  of  the  man  escapes  us,  and  we  have 
either  to  refrain  from^trying  to  see  him  or  to  con- 
tent ourselves  with  mere  hypothesis.     So  abnormal 


CONGllEVE  203 

is  the  mystery  in  which  he  is  enshrou<Zcd  that  what 
ia  the  case  of  others  would  be  notorious  remains 
in  his  case  dubious  and  obscure  :  so  that  we  cannot 
tell  whether  he  was  Bracegirdle's  lover  or  only  her 
friend,  and  the  secret  of  his  relations  with  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  has  yet  to  be  discovered. 
Mr.  Gosse  succeeded  no  better  than  they  that  went 
before  in  plucking  out  the  heart  of  Congreve's 
mystery.  He  was,  and  he  remains,  impersonal. 
At  liis  most  substantial  he  is  (as  some  one  said  of 
him)  no  more  than  '  vagueness  personified ' :  at  his 
most  luminous  only  an  appearance  like  the  Scin^ 
laeca,  the  shining  shadow  adapted  in  a  moment  of 
peculiar  inspiration  by  the  late  Lord  Lytton. 


But  we  have  the  plays,  and  who  runs  may  read 

and  admire.     I  say  advisedly  who  runs  may  read, 

and  not  who  will  may  see.    Congreve's 

plays  are,  one  can  imagine,  as  dull  in        ^ 

Dramnttst 
action   as    they  are    entertaining  m 

print.      They  have  dropped  out  of  the  repertoire, 

and  the  truth  is  tliey  merit  no  better  fate.     They 

are  only  plays  to  tlie  critic  of  stj  le ;  to  the  actor 

and  the  average  spectator  they  are  merely  so  much 

spoken  weariness.    To  begin  with,  they  are  marked 

by  such  a  deliberate  and  immitigable  baseness  of 


204  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

morality  as  makes  them  impossible  to  man.  Wych- 
erley  has  done  more  vilely ;  Vanbrugh  soars  to 
loftier  altitudes  of  filthiness.  But  neither  Wych- 
erley  nor  Vanbrugh  has  any  strain  of  the  admirable 
intellectual  quality  of  Congreve.  Villainy  comes 
natural  to  the  one,  and  beastliness  drops  from  the 
other  as  easily  as  honey  from  the  comb ;  but  in 
neither  is  there  evident  that  admirable  effort  of  the 
intelligence  which  is  a  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  Congreve,  and  with  neither  is  the  result  at  oncf 
so  consummate  and  so  tame.  For  both  Wycherley 
and  Vanbrugh  are  playwrights,  and  Congreve  is 
not.  Congreve  is  only  an  artist  in  style  writing 
for  himself  and  half  a  dozen  in  the  pit,  while 
Wycherley  and  Vanbrugh — and  for  that  matter 
Etherege  and  Farquhar  —  are  playwrights  pro- 
ducing for  the  whole  theatre.  In  fact  Congreve's 
plays  were  only  successful  in  proportion  as  they 
were  less  literary  and  'Congrevean.'  His  first 
comedy  was  the  talk  of  the  town ;  his  last.  The 
Way  of  the  World,  that  monument  of  characterisa- 
tion (of  a  kind)  and  fine  English,  was  only  a  'success 
of  esteem. '  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  Con- 
greve's plays  were  too  sordid  in  conception  and  too 
unamusing  in  effect  for  even  the  audiences  to  which 
they  were  produced ;  they  were  excellent  literature, 
but  they  were  bad  drama,  and  they  were  innately 
detestjible  to  boot.  Audiences  are  the  same  in  all 
strata  of  time;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  Wycherley 's 
Horner  and  Vanbrugh 's  Sir  John  and  Lady  Brut© 


CONGREVE  205 

were  amusing,  when  Lady  Wishfort  and  Sir  Samp- 
son Legend  and  the  illustrious  and  impossible 
Maskwell  were  found  '  old,  cold,  withered,  and  of 
'  intolerable  entrails.'  An  audience,  whatever  its 
epoch,  wants  action;  and  still  action,  and  again 
and  for  the  last  time  action ;  also  it  wants  a  point 
of  departure  that  shall  be  something  tinctured  with 
humanity,  a  touch  of  the  human  in  the  term  of 
everything,  and  at  least  a  'sort  of  a  kind  of  a 
'  strain '  of  humanity  in  the  progress  of  events  from 
the  one  point  to  the  other.  This  it  gets  in  Wych- 
erley,  brute  as  he  is ;  with  a  far  larger  and  more 
vigorous  comic  sense  it  gets  the  same  in  Vanbrugh ; 
it  gets  it  with  a  difference  in  the  light-hearted  in- 
decencies of  Farquhar.  From  the  magnificent  prose 
of  Congreve  it  is  absent.  His  it  was  to  sublimate 
all  that  was  most  artificial  in  an  artificial  state  of 
society :  he  was  the  consummate  artist  of  a  phase 
that  was  merely  transient,  the  laureate  of  a 
generation  that  was  only  alive  for  half-an-hour 
in  the  course  of  all  the  twenty-four.  He  is 
saved  from  oblivion  by  sheer  strength  of  style. 
It  is  a  bad  dramatic  style,  as  we  know ;  it  leaves 
the  Witwoulds  and  the  Plyants  as  admirable  as  the 
Mirabels  and  Millamants  and  Angelicas  ;  it  makes 
no  distinction  between  the  Mrs.  Foresights  and  the 
Sir  Sampson  Legends ;  it  presents  an  exemplar 
in  Lady  Wishfort  and  an  exemplar  in  Petulant ;  it 
is  uneasy,  self-conscious,  intrusive,  even  offensive, 
the  very  reverse  of  dramatic ;   and  in  Congreve's 


206  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

hands  it  is  irresistible,  for,  thanks  to  Congreve,  it 
has  been  forced  from  the  stage,  and  lives  as  litera- 
ture alone. 


Congreve  was  essentially  a  man  of  letters ;  his 
style  is  that  of  a  pupil  not  of  Moliere  but  of  the  full, 
tlie  rich,  the  excessive,  the  pedantic 
The  Writer  Jonson ;  his  Legends,  his  Wish- 
forts,  his  Foresights  are  the  lawful 
heirs — refined  and  sublimated  hut  still  of  direct 
descent — of  the  Tuccjis  and  the  liobadils  and 
the  Epicure  Mammons  of  the  great  Elizabethan ; 
they  are  (that  is)  more  literary  than  theatrical — 
they  are  excellent  reading,  but  they  have  long 
since  fled  the  stage  and  vanished  into  the  night 
of  mere  scholarship.  To  compare  an  author 
of  this  type  and  descent  to  Shakespeare  is  a  trifle 
unfair ;  to  compare  him  to  Moliere  is  to  mw- 
apprelicnd  the  differences  between  pure  literature 
and  literature  that  is  also  drama.  Congreve,  as 
I  have  said,  has  disappeared  from  the  boards,  and 
is  only  tolerable  or  even  intelligible  to  the  true 
reader ;  while  Shakespeare  worked  on  so  imper 
ftct  a  convention  that,  though  he  keeps  the  stage 
and  is  known  indeed  for  the  poet  of  the  most 
popular  play  ever  written— (for  that,  I  take  it, 
Jlamlet  is) — he  is  yet  the  prey  of  every  twopenny 


CONGREVE  207 

actor,  or  actor-maiiiiger,  or  actor-manager-editor, 
who  is  driven  to  deal  with  him.  Now,  Moliere 
wrote  as  one  that  was  first  of  all  a  great  actor ; 
who  dealt  not  so  much  with  what  is  transient  in 
human  life  as  with  wliat  is  eternal  in  human 
nature ;  who  addressed  himself  much  more  to 
an  audience — (Feuelon  who  found  fault  with  his 
style  is  witness  to  the  fact) — than  to  a  circle  of 
readers.  And  the  result  is  that  Moliere  not 
only  remains  better  reading  than  Congreve,  but 
is  played  at  this  time  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu 
line  for  line  and  word  for  word  as  he  was  played  at 
the  Falais-Bourbon  over  two  hundred  years  ago. 


ARABIAN   NIGHTS   ENTER- 
TAINMENTS 

He  that  has  the  book  of  the  Thousand  Niijhts 

and  a  Night  has   Hachisch-made-words    for   life. 

Gallant,     subtle,     refined,     intense, 

„  humourous,     obscene,    here     is    the 

Romance       ,,..,.  ,       ,        .  i 

Arab  intelligence  drunk  with  con- 
ception. It  is  a  vast  extravaganza  of  passion  in 
action  and  picarooning  farce  and  material  splendour 
run  mad.  The  amorous  instinct  and  the  instinct 
of  enjoyment,  not  tempered  but  heightened  greatly 
by  the  strict  ordinances  of  dogma,  have  leave  to 
riot  uncontrolled.  It  is  the  old  immortal  story 
of  Youth  and  Beauty  and  their  coming  together, 
but  it  is  coloured  with  the  hard  and  brilliant  hues 
of  an  imagination  as  sensuous  in  type  and  as 
gorgeous  in  ambition  as  humanity  has  known.  The 
lovers  must  suffer,  for  suffering  intensifies  the 
joy  of  fruition ;  so  they  are  subjected  to  all 
such  modes  of  travail  and  estrangement  as  a  fancy 
careless  of  pain  and  indifferent  to  life  can 
devise.  But  it  is  known  that  happy  they  are 
to  be ;  and  if  by  the  annihilation  of  time  and 
space  then  are  space  and  time  annihilated.  Ad- 
ventures are  to  the  adventurous  all    the  world 


'ARABIAN  NIGHTS'  209 

over;  but  they  are  so  with  a  difference  in  the  East. 
It  is  only  Sinbad  that  confesses  himself  devoured 
with  the  lust  of  travel.  The  grip  of  a  humour- 
ous and  fantastic  fata  is  tight  on  all  tlie  other 
heroes  of  this  epic-in-bits.  They  do  not  go 
questing  for  accidents  :  their  hour  comes,  and  the 
finger  of  God  urges  them  forth,  and  thrusts  them 
on  in  the  way  of  destiny.  The  air  is  horrible  with 
the  gross  and  passionate  figments  of  L-ilamite 
mythology.  Afrits  watch  over  or  molest  them ; 
they  are  made  captive  of  malignant  Ghouls  ;  the 
Jinns  take  bodily  form  and  woo  them  to  their 
embraces.  The  sea-horse  ramps  at  them  from  the 
ocean  floor ;  the  great  roc  darkens  earth  about 
them  with  the  shadow  of  his  wings ;  wise  and 
goodly  apes  come  forth  and  minister  unto  them  ; 
enchanted  camels  bear  them  over  evil  deserts 
with  the  swiftness  of  the  wind,  or  the  magic  horse 
outspreads  his  sail-broad  vannes,  and  soars  with 
them ;  or  they  are  borne  aloft  by  some  servant 
of  the  Spell  till  the  earth  is  as  a  bowl  beneath 
them,  and  they  hear  the  angels  quiring  at  the 
foot  of  the  Throne.  So  they  fare  to  strange 
and  dismal  places  :  through  cities  of  brass  whose 
millions  have  perished  by  divine  decree ;  cities 
gTiilty  of  the  cult  of  the  Fire  and  the  Light  where- 
in all  life  has  been  striken  to  stone  ;  or  on  to 
the  magnetic  mountain  by  whose  horrible  attrac- 
tion the  bolts  are  drawn  from  the  ship,  and  they 
alone  survive  tlie  inevitable  wreck.     And  the  end 


210  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

conies.  Ojmes  the  Castle  of  Burnished  Copper, 
and  its  ^ates  fly  open  before  them :  the  forty 
damsels,  each  one  fairer  than  the  rest,  troop  out 
at  their  approach ;  they  are  bathed  in  odours, 
clothed  in  glittering  apparel,  fed  with  enchanted 
meats,  plunged  fathoms  deep  in  the  delights  of  tlie 
flesh.  There  is  contrived  for  them  a  private  paradise 
of  luxury  and  splendour,  a  practical  Infinite  of 
gold  and  silver  stuffs  and  jewels  and  all  things 
gorgeous  and  rare  and  costly  ;  and  therein  do  they 
abide  for  evermore.  You  would  say  of  their  poets 
that  they  contract  immensity  to  the  limits  of  desire  ; 
they  exhaust  the  inexhaustible  in  their  enormous 
effort ;  they  stoop  the  universe  to  the  slavery  ol  a 
talisman,  and  bind  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds 
within  the  compass  of  a  ring. 


But  there  is  another  side  to  their  imaginings. 
When  the  JMagian  has  done  beating  liis  copi)er 
drum — (how  its  mysterious  murnmr 
Us  Comedy  still  haunts  the  echoes  of  memory  !) 
— when  Queen  Lab  has  finished  her 
tremendous  conjurations,  wonder  gives  place  to 
laughter,  the  apotheosis  of  the  flesh  to  the  spirit 
of  comedy.  The  enchanter  turns  harlequin  ;  and 
what  the  lovers  ask  is  not  the  annihilation  of  time 
and   space    but  only   that  the   father    be  at    his 


'ARABIAN  NIGHTS'  211 

prayers,  or  the  husband  gone  on  a  fool's  errand, 
while  they  have  leave  to  kiss  eacli  other's  mouths, 
*  as  a  pigeon  feedeth  her  young,'  to  touch  the  lute, 
strip  language  naked,  and  'repeat  the  following 
'  verses '  to  a  ring  of  laughing  girls  and  amid 
all  such  comfits  and  delicates  as  a  hungry  audi- 
ence may  rejoice  to  hear  enumerated.  And  the 
intrigue  begins,  and  therewith  the  presentment  of 
character,  the  portraiture  of  manners.  Merry 
ladies  make  love  to  their  gallants  with  flowers, 
or  scorn  them  with  the  huckle-bones  of  shame; 
the  Mother  Coles  of  Araby  pursue  the  unwary 
stranger  for  their  mistress'  pleasure ;  damsels 
resembling  the  full  moon  carouse  with  genial 
merchants  or  inquiring  calenders.  The  beast  o'" 
burden,  even  the  porter,  has  his  hour :  he  goes 
the  round  at  the  heels  of  a  veiled  but  beautiful 
lady,  and  lays  her  in  the  materials  of  as  liberal 
and  sumptuous  a  carouse  as  is  recorded  in  his- 
tory. Happy  lady,  and  O  thrice-fortunate  porter  ! 
enviable  even  to  the  term  of  time  !  It  is  a  volup- 
tuous farce,  a  masque  and  anti-masque  of  wanton- 
ness and  stratagem,  of  wine-cups  and  jewels  and 
fine  raiment,  of  gaudy  nights  and  amorous  days, 
of  careless  husbands  and  adventurous  wives,  of 
innocent  fathers  and  rebel  daugliters  and  lovers 
happy  or  befooled.  And  high  over  all,  his  heart 
contracted  with  the  spleen  of  the  East,  the  tedium 
of  supremacy,  towers  the  great  Caliph  Haroun, 
the  buxom  and  bloody  tyrant,  a  Muslim  Lord  o/ 


212  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Misrule.  With  Giafar,  the  finest  gentleman  and 
goodliest  gallant  of  Eastern  story,  and  Mesrour, 
the  well-belovedj  the  immortal  Eunuch,  he  goes 
forth  upon  his  round  in  the  enchanted  streets  of 
Bagdad,  like  Fran9ois  Pi-emier  in  the  maze  of  old- 
time  Paris.  The  night  is  musical  with  happy 
laughter  and  the  sound  of  lutes  and  voices ;  it  is 
seductive  with  the  clink  of  goblets  and  the  odour  ot 
perfumes :  not  a  shadow  but  has  its  secret,  or  jovial 
or  amorous  or  terrible  :  here  falls  a  head,  and 
there  you  may  note  the  contrapuntal  effect  of  the 
bastinado.  But  the  blood  is  quickly  hidden  with 
flowers,  the  bruises  are  tired  over  with  cloth-of- 
gold,  and  the  jolly  pageant  sweeps  on.  Truly  the 
''omic  essence  is  imperishable.  AVliat  was  fun  to 
them  in  Baghdad  is  fun  to  us  in  London  after  a. 
thousand  years. 


1 


The  prose  of  Mr.  Payne's  translation  is  always 
readable  and  often  elegant ;  Sir  Richard  Burton's 
notes  and  '  terminal  essays '  are  a 
Sacer  Votes  mine  of  curious  and  diverting  infor- 
mation ;  but  for  me  the  real  author 
of  The  Arabian  Nights  is  called  not  Burton  nor 
Payne  but  Antoine  Galland.  He  it  was,  in  truth, 
who  gave  the  world  as  much  exactly  as  it  needed 
of  his  preposterous  original :    who  eliminated  ita 


•ARABIAN  NIGHTS'  213 

tediousness,  purged  it  of  its  barbarous  and  sicken- 
ing, immorality^  wiped  it  clean  of  cruelty  and 
unnaturalness,  selected  its  essentials  of  comedy 
and  romance,  and  set  them  clear  and  sharp  against 
a  light  that  western  eyes  can  bear  and  in  an  atmo- 
sphere that  western  lungs  can  breathe.  Of  course 
the  new  translations  are  interesting — especially  to 
ethnologists  and  the  critic  with  a  theory  that 
translated  verse  is  inevitably  abominable.  But 
they  are  not  for  the  general  nor  the  artist.  They 
include  too  many  pages  revolting  by  reason  of  un- 
utterable brutality  of  incident  and  point  of  view — 
as  also  for  the  vUeness  of  those  lewd  and  dreadful 
puritans  whose  excesses  against  humanity  and  whose 
devotion  to  Islam  they  record — to  be  acceptable  as 
literature  or  tolerable  as  reading.  Now,  in  Galland 
I  get  the  best  of  them.  He  gave  me  whatever  is 
worth  remembering  of  Bedreddin  and  Camaralza- 
mau  and  that  enchanting  Fairy  Peri-Banou  ;  he  is 
the  true  poet  alike  of  Abou  Hassan  and  the  Young 
King  of  the  Black  Islands,  of  Ali  Baba  and  the 
Barber  of  the  Brothers  ;  to  him  I  owe  that  memory 
. — of  Zobeide  alone  in  the  accursed  city  whose 
monstrous  silence  is  broken  by  the  voice  of  the  one 
man  spared  by  the  wrath  of  God  as  he  repeats  his 
solitary  prayer — which  ranks  with  Crusoe's  dis- 
covery of  the  footprint  in  the  thrilling  moments  of 
my  life ;  it  was  he  who,  by  refraining  from  the 
Rde  of  pepper  in  his  cream  tarts,  contrived  to 
kitchen    those    coufectious  with  the  very  essence 


214  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

of  romance ;  it  was  he  that  clove  asunder  the 
Sultan's  kitchen-wall  for  me^  and  took  me  to 
the  pan,  and  bade  me  ask  a  certain  question  of 
the  fish  that  fried  therein,  and  made  them  answer 
me  in  terms  mysterious  and  tremendous  yet.  Nay, 
that  animating  and  delectable  feeling  I  cherish 
ever  for  such  enchanted  commodities  as  gold-dust 
and  sandal-wood  and  sesame  and  cloth  of  gold 
and  black  slaves  with  scimitars — to  whom  do  I  owe 
it  but  this  rare  and  delightful  artist  ?  '  O  mes  cliers 
*  Mille  et  une  Nuits  !'  says  Fantasio,  and  he  speaks 
in  the  name  of  all  them  that  have  lived  the  life 
that  Galland  alone  made  possible.  Tlie  damsels 
of  the  new  style  may  '  laugh  till  they  fall  back- 
'  wards,*  etc.,  through  forty  volumes  instead  of 
ten,  and  I  shall  still  go  back  to  my  Galland.  I 
shall  go  back  to  him  because  his  mnsterpioce  is — 
not  a  book  of  reference,  nor  a  curiosity  of  litera- 
ture, nor  an  achievement  in  pedantry,  nor  even  a 
demonstration  of  the  absolute  failure  of  Islamism 
as  an  influence  that  makes  for  righteousness,  but 
— au  excellent  piece  of  art. 


RICHARDSON 

It  is  many  years  since  Richardson  fell  into 
desuetude ;  it  is  many  years  since  he  became  the 
novelist  not  of  the  world  at  large 
but  of  that  inconsiderable  section  of  His  Fortune 
the  world  which  is  interested  in 
literature.  His  methods  are  those  of  a  bygone 
epoch ;  his  ideals^  with  one  or  two  exceptions, 
are  old-fashioned  enougli  to  seem  fantastic  ;  his 
sentiment  belongs  to  ancient  history  ;  to  a 
generation  bred  upon  Ouida's  romances  and  the 
plays  of  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert  his  morality  appears 
not  merely  questionable  but  coarse  and  improper 
and  repulsive.  While  he  lived  he  was  adored  :  he 
moved  and  spoke  and  dwelt  in  an  eternal  mist  of 
'  good,  thick,  strong,  stupefying  incense  smoke ' ; 
he  was  the  idol  of  female  England,  a  master  of 
virtue,  a  king  of  art,  the  wisest  and  best  of 
mankind.  Johnson  revered  him — Johnson  and 
Colley  Gibber ;  Diderot  ranked  him  with  IMoses 
and  Homer ;  to  Balzac  and  Musset  and  George 
Sand  he  was  the  greatest  novelist  of  all  time  ; 
Rousseau  imitated  him  ;  Macaulay  wrote  and 
talked  of  him  with  an  enthusiasm  that  would 
have  sat  becomingly  on  Lady  Bradshaigh  herself. 


216  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

But  all  that  is  over.  Not  even  the  emasculation 
to  which  the  late  Mr.  Dallas  was  pleased  to  subject 
Clarissa  Harlowe  could  make  Clarissa  Harlowe 
popular ;  not  all  the  allusions  of  all  the  leader- 
writers  of  a  leader-writing  age  have  been  able  to 
persuade  the  public  to  renew  its  interest  in  the 
works  and  ways  of  Grandison  the  august  and  the 
lovely  and  high-souled  Harriet  Byron.  Richardson 
has  to  be  not  skimmed  but  studied  ;  not  sucked  like 
an  orange,  nor  swallowed  like  a  lollipop,  but  attacked 
secundum  artem  like  a  dinner  of  many  courses  and 
wines.  Once  inside  the  vast  and  solid  labyrinth  of 
his  intrigue,  you  must  hold  fast  to  the  clue  which 
you  have  caught  up  on  entering,  or  the  adven- 
ture proves  impossible,  and  you  emerge  from  his 
precincts  defeated  and  disgraced.  And  by  us 
children  of  Mudie,  to  whom  a  novel  must  be  either 
a  solemn  brandy-and-soda  or  as  it  were  a  garrulous 
and  vapid  afternoon  tea,  adventures  of  that  moment 
are  not  often  attempted. 


Again,  when  all  is  said  in  Richardson's  favour  it 

has  to  be  admitted  against  him  that  in  Pamela  he 

produced    an   essay  in   vulgarity — of 

Pamela       sentiment  and  morality  alike — which 

has  never  been  surpassed.     In  these 

days    it    is    hardly    less    difHcult    to    understand 

the    popularity    of    this   masterniece   of    specioua 


RICHARDSON  217 

immodesty  than  to  speak  or  think  of  it  with 
patience.  That  it  was  once  thought  moral  is  as 
wonderful  as  that  it  was  once  found  readable. 
What  is  more  easily  apprehended  is  the  contempt 
of  Henry  Fielding — is  the  justice  of  that  ridicule 
he  was  moved  to  visit  it  withal.  To  him,  a 
scholar  and  a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  the 
world,  Pamela  was  a  new-fangled  blend  of  senti- 
mental priggishness  and  prurient  unreality.  To 
him  the  pretensions  to  virtue  and  consideration 
of  the  vulgar  little  hussy  whom  Richardson 
selected  for  his  heroine  were  certainly  not  less 
preposterous  than  the  titles  to  life  and  actuality 
of  the  wooden  libertine  whom  Richardson  put 
forth  as  his  hero.  He  was  artist  enough  to 
know  that  the  book  was  ignoble  as  literature 
and  absolutely  false  as  fact ;  he  was  moralist 
enough  to  see  that  its  teachings  were  the  reverse 
of  elevating  and  improving ;  and  he  uttered  his 
conclusions  more  suo  in  one  of  the  best  and 
healthiest  books  in  English  literature.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  only  merit  of  which  the  history 
of  Miss  Andrews  can  well  be  accused :  that  it 
set  Fielding  thinking  and  provoked  him  to  the 
composition  of  the  first  of  his  three  great  novels. 
Pamela  is  only  remembered  nowadays  as  Joseph's 

sister :  the  egregious  Mr.  B has  hardly  any 

existence  save  as  Lady  Booby's  brother.  "Tis  an 
ill  wind  that  blows  good  to  nobody.  There  are 
few  more  tedious  or  more  unpleasant  experiences 


218  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

than  Pamela  ;  or,  Virtue  Rewarded.  But  you  have 
but  to  remember  that  without  it  the  race  miijht 
never  have  lieard  of  Fanny  and  Joseph,  of  the  fair 
Slipslop  and  the  ingenuous  Didapper,  of  Parson 
Trulliber  and  immortal  Abraham  Adams,  to  be 
reconciled  to  its  existence  and  the  fact  of  its 
old-world  fame.  Nay,  more,  to  remember  its 
ingenious  author  with  something  of  gratitude  and 
esteem. 


Nor  is  this  the  only  charge  that  can  be  made 
and  sustained  against  our  poet.     It  is  also  to  be 

noted  in  his  disparagement  that  he 
Grandison    is  the  author  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison, 

and  that  Sir  Charles  Grandison,  epic 
of  the  polite  virtues,  is  deadly  dull.  '  My  dear,' 
says  somebody  in  one  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  books, 
'  your  eternal  blue  velvet  quite  tires  me. '  That  is 
the  worst  of  Sir  Charles  Grandison :  his  eternal 
blue  velvet — his  virtue,  that  is,  his  honour,  his 
propriety,  his  good  fortune,  his  absurd  command 
over  the  affections  of  the  other  sex,  his  swords- 
manship, his  manliness,  his  patriotic  sentiment,  his 
noble  piety — quite  tires  you.  He  is  an  ideal,  but 
so  very,  very  tame  that  it  is  hard  to  justify  his  exist- 
ence. He  is  too  perfect  to  be  of  the  slightest  moral 
use  to  anybody.  He  has  everything  he  wants,  so 
that  he  has  no  temptation  to  be  wicked ;   he  is 


RICHARDSON  219 

incapable  of  immorality^  so  that  he  is  easily  quit 
of  all  inducements  to  be  vicious ;  he  has  no 
passions,  so  that  he  is  superior  to  every  sort  of 
spiritual  contest ;  he  is  monstrous  clever,  so  that 
he  has  made  up  his  mind  about  everything  know- 
able  and  unknowable ;  he  is  excessively  virtuous 
so  that  he  has  made  it  up  in  the  right  direction. 
He  is,  as  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  remarks,  a  tedious 
commentary  on  the  truth  of  Mrs.  Rawdon  Craw- 
ley's acute  reflection  upon  the  moral  effect  of  five 
thousand  a  year.  He  is  only  a  pattern  creature, 
because  he  has  neither  need  nor  opportunity, 
neither  longing  nor  capacity,  to  be  anji;hing  else. 
In  real  life  such  faultless  monsters  are  impossible  : 
one  does  not  like  to  think  what  would  happen 
if  they  were  not.  In  fiction  they  are  possible 
enough,  and — what  is  more  to  the  purpose — they 
are  of  necessity  extravagantly  dull.  This  is 
what  is  the  matter  with  Sir  Charles.  He  is 
dull,  and  he  effuses  dulness.  By  dint  of  being 
uninteresting  himself  he  makes  his  surroundings 
uninteresting.  In  the  record  of  his  adventures  and 
experiences  there  is  enough  of  wit  and  character 
and  invention  to  make  the  fortune  of  a  score 
or  more  of  such  novels  as  the  public  of  these 
degenerate  days  would  hail  with  enthusiasm. 
But  his  function  is  to  vitiate  them  all.  He  is  a 
bore  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  of  his  eminence  in 
that  capacity  his  history  is  at  once  the  monument 
and  the  prooi^ 


220  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

But  if  Grandison  be  dull  and  Pamela  con- 
temptible Clarissa  remains ;   and  Clarissa  is  wliat 

Musset  called  it,  'le  premier  roman 
Clarissa      '  du  monde.'     Of  course  Clarissa  has 

its  faults.  Miss  Harlowe,  for  in- 
stance, is  not  always  herself — is  not  always  the 
complete  creation  she  affects  to  be :  there  are 
touches  of  moral  pedantry — anticipations  of  George 
Eliot — in  her;  the  scenes  in  which  she  is  brought  to 
shame  are  scarcely  real,  living,  moving,  all  the  rest 
of  it.  But  on  the  other  hand  is  there  anything 
better  than  Lovelace  in  the  whole  range  of  fiction  } 
Take  Lovelace  in  all  or  any  of  his  moods — sup- 
pliant, intriguing,  repentant,  triumphant,  above 
all  triumphant — and  find  his  parallel  if  you  can. 
Where,  you  ask,  did  the  little  printer  of  Salisbury 
Court — who  suggests  to  Mr.  Stephen  'a  plump 
'  white  mouse  in  a  wig' — where  did  Richardson 
discover  so  much  gallantry  and  humanity,  so  much 
romance  and  so  much  fact,  such  an  abundance 
of  the  heroic  qualities  and  the  baser  veracities 
of  mortal  nature  ?  Lovelace  is,  if  you  except 
Don  Quixote,  the  completest  hero  in  fiction.  He 
has  wit,  humour,  grace,  brilliance,  charm  ;  he  is 
a  scoundrel  and  a  ruffian,  and  he  is  a  gentleman 
and  a  man ;  of  his  kind  and  in  his  degree  he 
has  the  right  Shakespearean  quality.  Almost  ae 
perfect  in  her  way  is  the  enchanting  Miss  Howe 
— an  incarnation  of  womanliness  and  wit  and  fun, 
after  Lovelace  the  most  brilliant  of  Richardson's 


RICHARDSON  221 

creations.  Or  take  the  Harlowe  family :  the 
severe  and  stupid  father,  the  angry  and  selfish 
uncles,  the  cub  James,  the  vixen  Arabella,  a 
very  fiend  of  envy  and  hatred  and  malice — 
what  a  gallery  of  portraits  is  here  !  And  Solmes 
and  Tomlinson,  Belford  and  Brand  and  Hickman ; 
and  the  infinite  complexity  of  the  intrigue ;  the 
wit,  the  pathos,  the  invention ;  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature ;  the  faculty  of  dialogue — where 
save  in  Clarissa  shall  we  find  all  these?  As  for 
Miss  Harlowe  herself,  all  incomplete  as  she  is  she 
remains  the  Eve  of  fiction,  the  prototype  of  the 
modern  heroine,  the  common  mother  of  all  the 
self-contained,  self-suffering,  self-satisfied  young 
persons  whose  delicacies  and  repugnances,  whose 
independence  of  mind  and  body,  whose  airs  and 
ideas  and  imaginings,  are  the  stuff  of  the  modem 
novel.  With  her  begins  a  new  ideal  of  woman- 
hood ;  from  her  proceeds  a  type  unknown  ia 
fact  and  fiction  until  she  came.  When  after 
outrage  she  declines  to  marry  her  destroyer,  and 
prefers  death  to  the  condonation  of  her  dishonour, 
she  strikes  a  note  and  assumes  a  position  till 
then  not  merely  unrecognised  but  absolutely  un- 
discovered. It  has  been  said  of  her  half  in  jest 
and  half  in  earnest  that  she  is  'the  aboriginal 
'  Woman's  Rights  person ' ;  and  it  is  a  fact  that 
she  and  Helena  and  Desdemona  and  Ophelia 
are  practically  a  thousand  years  apart.  And  this 
is    perhaps    lier  finest   virtue  as   it    is   certainly 


222  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

her  greatest  charm :  that  until  she  set  the 
example  woman  in  literature  as  a  self-sufFering 
individuality,  as  an  existence  endowed  with  equal 
rights  to  independence — of  choice,  volition,  action 
— with  man,  had  not  begun  to  be.  That  of 
itself  would  suffice  to  make  Clarissa  memor- 
able ;  and  that  is  the  least  of  its  merits.  Con- 
sider it  fi-om  which  point  you  will,  the  book 
remains  a  masterpiece,  unique  of  its  kind.  It 
has  been  imitated  but  it  has  never  been  equalled. 
It  is  Richardson's  only  title  to  fame ;  but  it  ia 
enough.  Not  the  Great  Pyramid  itself  is  more 
solidly  built  nor  more  incapable  of  ruin. 


TOLSTOI 

There  are  two  men  in  Tolstoi,  He  is  a  mystic 
and  he  is  also  a  realist.  He  is  addicted  to  the  prac- 
tice of  a  pietism  that  for  all  its  sin- 

•4.      •         ^u-        -e       ,.                    A  The  Man 

centy   is   nothing  if  not  vaffue  and  ,    , 

.            ,            ,    ,       .      T  and  the 

sentimental;     and    he    is     the    most  ,    ... 

acute  and  dispassionate  of  observers, 
the  most  profound  and  earnest  student  of  character 
and  emotion.  These  antitheses  are  both  represented 
in  his  novels.  He  has  thought  out  the  scheme  of 
things  for  himself;  his  interpretation,  while  deeply 
tinctured  with  religion,  is  also  largely  and  liber- 
ally human  ;  he  is  one  to  the  just  and  the  unjust 
alike,  and  he  is  no  more  angry  with  the  wicked 
than  he  is  partial  to  the  good.  He  asks  but 
one  thing  of  his  men  and  women — that  they  shall 
be  natural ;  yet  he  handles  his  humbugs  and  im- 
postors with  as  cold  a  kindness  and  a  magnanimity 
as  equable  as  he  displays  in  his  treatment  of  their 
opposites.  Indeed  his  interest  in  humanity  is  in- 
exhaustible, and  his  understanding  of  it  is  well  nigh 
formidable  in  its  union  of  breadth  with  delicacy. 
Himself  an  aristocrat  and  an  official,  he  is  able  to 
sympathise  with  the  Russian  peasant  as  completely 
and  to  express  his  sentiments  as  perfectly  as  he  is  able 


224  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

to  present  the  characters  and  j^ive  utterance  to  the 
ambitions  and  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  class  to  which 
he  belongs  and  might  be  assumed  to  have  studied 
best.  It  is  to  be  noted,  moreover,  that  he  looks 
for  his  material  at  one  or  other  pole  of  society. 
He  is  equjiUy  at  home  with  officers  and  privates, 
with  diplomats  and  carpenters,  with  princes  and 
ploughmen  ;  but  with  the  intermediary  strata  he  is 
out  of  touch,  and  he  is  careful  to  leave  the  task 
of  presenting  them  to  others.  It  is  arguable  that 
only  in  the  highest  and  lowest  expressions  of 
society  is  unsophisticated  nature  to  be  found  ;  and 
that  Tolstoi,  interested  less  in  manners  than  in 
men  and  studious  above  all  of  the  elemental 
qualities  of  character,  has  done  right  to  avoid  the 
middle-class  and  attach  himself  to  the  considera- 
tion and  the  representation  of  the  highest  and  the 
lowest.  Certain  it  is  that  here  have  been  his 
successes.  The  Prince  Andry  of  War  and  Peace — 
cultured,  intelligent,  earnest,  true  lover  and  true 
gentleman — is  as  noble  a  hero  as  modern  fiction 
has  achieved  ;  but  he  is  no  more  interesting  as  a 
human  being  and  no  more  successful  as  art  than 
the  Marianna  of  les  Cosaques,  who  is  a  savage  pure 
and  simple,  or  the  Efim  of  les  Deux  Vieillards,  who 
would  seem  to  the  haughty  Radical  no  better  than 
a  common  idiot.  It  is  to  be  noted  of  all  three — • 
the  prince,  the  savage,  and  the  peasant — that  none 
in  himself  is  sophisticate  nor  vile  but  that  each  is 
rich  in  the  common,  simple,  elemental  qualities  of 


TOLSTOI  225 

humanity.  It  is  to  these  and  the  manifestations  of 
these  that  Tolstoi  turns  for  inspiration  first  of  all. 
If  he  chose  he  could  be  as  keen  a  satirist  and  as 
indefatigable  a  student  of  the  meannesses  and  tho 
minor  miseries  of  existence,  the  toothaches  and  the 
pimples  of  experience,  as  Thackeray.  But  he  does 
not  choose.  The  epic  note  sounds  in  his  work.  The 
eternal  issues  of  life,  the  fundamental  interests  of 
character  and  conduct  and  emotion,  are  his  material. 
Love,  valour,  self-sacrifice,  charity,  the  responsi- 
bilities of  being,  these  and  their  like  are  the  only 
vital  facts  to  him  ;  they  constitute  the  really  im- 
portant part  of  the  scheme  of  things  as  he  sees 
and  comprehends  it.  In  their  analysis  the  artist 
and  the  mystic  meet  and  take  hands ;  sometimes  to 
each  other's  profit,  more  often  to  each  other's  huii;. 
It  is  not  without  significance  that  no  other  novelist 
has  looked  so  closely  and  penetrated  so  far  into 
the  secret  of  death  :  that  none  has  divined  so  much 
of  it,  nor  presented  his  results  with  so  complete  and 
intimate  a  mastery  and  so  persuasive  and  inspiring 
a  belief.  Plainly  Tolstoi  has  learned  'la  vraie 
'  signification  de  la  vie ' ;  his  faith  in  its  capacities 
is  immense,  his  acceptance  of  its  consequences  is 
unhesitating.  He  is  the  great  optimist,  and  his 
work  is  wholesome  and  encouraging  in  direct  ratio 
to  the  vastness  of  his  talent  and  the  perfection 
of  his  method. 


226  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

Who  does  not  know  that  extraordinary  Death  0} 
Ivan  natch  ?     It  is  an  acliievement  in  realism  :  not 

the  realism  of  externals  and  trivial 
Ivan  natch     details — though  of  this  there  is  enouj^h 

for  art  if  not  for  the  common  Zola- 
phj^te — hut  the  hif^her  and  hetter  sort^  the  realism 
which  deals  with  mental  and  spiritual  conditions, 
the  realism  of  Othello  and  Hamlet.  There  are  many 
deaths  in  literature,  hut  there  is  none,  I  think,  in 
which  the  gradual  processes  of  dissolution  are 
analysed  and  presented  with  such  knowledge,  such 
force,  such  terrible  directness,  as  here.  The  result 
is  appalling,  but  the  final  impression  is  one  of 
encouragement  and  consolation.  Here,  as  every- 
where, Tolstoi  appeals  to  the  primitive  nature  of 
man,  and  the  issue  is  what  he  wishes  it  to  be. 
Not  for  him  is  the  barren  pessimism  of  the  I.ittor- 
day  French  rhapsodist  in  fiction,  and  the  last  word 
of  his  study,  inexorable  till  then,  is  a  word  of 
hope  and  faith. 


Incomparably  his  greatest  book,  however,  is  War 

and  Peace.    It  is  the  true  Russian  epic;  alike  in  tlie 

vastness  of  its  scope  and  in  the  com- 

-,  pleteness  of  its  execution.      It  tells 

rcacc 

the  story  of  the  great  conflict  between 

Koutouzoff  and  Russia  and  Napoleon  and  France, 

it  be'jrins  some  years  before  Austerlit/,  and  it  ends 


TOLSTOI  227 

when  Borodino  and  Moscow  are  already  ancient 
history.  The  canvas  is  immense :  the  crowd  of 
figures  and  the  world  of  incidents  almost  bewilder- 
ing. It  is  not  a  complete  success.  In  many  places 
the  mystic  has  got  the  better  of  the  artist :  he  is 
responsible  for  theories  of  the  art  of  war  which, 
ad\anced  with  the  greatest  confidence,  are  dis- 
proved by  the  simple  narrative  of  events ;  and  he 
has  made  a  study  of  Napoleon  in  which,  for  the 
first  and  only  time  in  all  his  work,  he  appears  as 
an  intemperate  advocate.  But  when  all  is  said  iu 
blame  so  much  remains  to  praise  that  one  scarce 
knows  where  to  begin.  Tolstoi's  theory  of  war  is 
mystical  and  untenable,  no  doubt ;  but  his  pictures 
of  warfare  are  incomparably  good.  None  has  felt 
and  reproduced  as  he  has  done  what  may  be  called 
the  intimacy  of  battle — the  feeling  of  the  individual 
soldier,  the  passion  and  excitement,  the  terror  and 
tiie  fury,  that  taken  collectively  make  up  the  in- 
fluence which  represents  the  advance  or  the  retreat 
of  an  army  in  combat.  But  also,  in  a  far  greater 
degree,  none  has  dealt  so  wonderfully  with  the 
vaster  incidents,  the  more  tremendous  issues.  His 
Austerlitz  is  magnificent;  his  Borodino  is  (there 
is  no  other  word  for  it)  epic ;  his  studies  of  the 
Uetreat  are  almost  worthy  of  what  has  gone  be- 
fore. For  the  first  time  what  has  been  called  '  tlie 
'  peering  modern  touch '  is  here  applied  to  great 
events,  with  the  result  that  here  is  a  book  unicjue 
in  literature.     Of  the  characters — Natasha,  Peter. 


228  VIEWS  AND  REVIE^VS 

Mary,  Dennissoff,  the  Rostoffs,  Helen,  Dologhoff, 
Bagration,  Bolkonsky,  and  the  others ;  above  all 
Koutouzoff  and  Prince  Andry — Prince  Andry  the 
heroic  gentleman,  Koutouzoif  the  genius  of  Russia 
and  the  war — to  meet  them  once  is  to  take  on  a 
set  of  friends  and  enemies  for  life. 


FIELDING 

Fielding  is  one  of  the  most  striking  figures  in  our 
literary  history,  and  he  is  one  of  the  most  popular 
as  well.  But  it  is  questionable  if 
many  people  know  very  much  about  Illusions 
him  after  all,  or  if  the  Fielding  of 
legend — the  potwalloper  of  genius  at  whom  we  have 
smiled  so  often — has  many  things  in  common  with 
the  Fielding  of  fact,  the  indefatigable  student,  the 
vigorous  magistrate,  the  great  and  serious  artist. 
You  hear  but  little  of  him  from  himself ;  for  with 
that  mixture  of  intellectual  egoism  and  moral  un- 
selfishness which  is  a  characteristic  of  his  large  and 
liberal  nature  he  was  as  careless  of  Henry  Field- 
ing's sayings  and  doings  and  as  indiflerent  to  the 
fact  of  Henry  Fielding's  life  and  personality  as  he 
was  garrulous  in  respect  of  the  good  qualities  of 
Henry  Fielding's  friends  and  truculently  talkative 
about  the  vices  of  Henry  Fielding's  enemies.  And 
what  is  exactly  known  people  have  somehow  or 
other  contrived  to  misapprehend  and  misapply. 
They  have  preferred  the  evidence  of  Horace 
Walpole  to  that  of  their  own  senses.  They  have 
suiFered  the  brilliant  antitheses  of  Lady  Mary  to 
obscure  and  blur  the  man  as  they  might  have  found 


230  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

him  in  his  work.  Booth  and  Jones  have  been 
taken  for  definite  and  complete  reflections  of  the 
author  of  their  being :  the  parts  for  the  wliole, 
that  is — a  light-minded  captain  of  foot  and  a  hot- 
headed and  soft-hearted  young  man  about  town 
for  adequate  presentments  of  the  artist  of  a  new 
departure  and  the  writer  of  three  or  four  books 
of  singular  solidity  and  finish.  Whichever  way 
you  turn,  you  are  confronted  with  appearances 
each  more  distorted  and  more  dubious  than  the 
other.  Some  have  chosen  to  believe  the  foolish 
fancies  of  Murphy,  and  have  pictured  themselves  a 
Fielding  begrimed  with  snufF,  heady  with  cham- 
pagne, and  smoking  so  ferociously  that  out  of  the 
wrappings  of  his  tobacco  he  could  keep  himself  in 
paper  for  the  manuscripts  of  his  plays.  For  others 
the  rancour  of  Smollett  calls  up  a  Fielding  who 
divides  his  time  and  energy  between  blowing  a 
trumpet  on  a  Smithfield  show  and  playing  Cap- 
tain Bilkum  to  a  flesh-and-blood  Stormandra  at 
the  establishment  of  a  living,  breathing,  working 
Mother  Punchbowl.  With  Dr.  Rimbault  and  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Morley  others  yet  evolve  from  their 
inner  consciousness  a  Fielding  with  a  booth  in 
Smithfield,  buffooning  for  the  coppers  of  a  Bar- 
tlemy  Fair  audience.  The  accomplished  lawyer 
has  had  as  little  place  in  men's  thoughts  as  the 
tender  father,  the  admirable  artist  as  little  as  the 
devoted  husband  and  the  steadfast  friend.  Fielding 
lias  been  so  often  painted  a  hard  drinker  that  few 


FIELDING  231 

have  thought  of  him  as  a  hard  reader ;  he  has  been 
suspected  of  conjugal  infidelity,  so  it  has  seemed 
impossible  that  he  should  be  other  than  a  violent 
Bohemian.  In  certain  chapters  oi  Jonathan  Wild  the 
Great  there  is  enough  of  sustained  intellectual  effort 
to  furnish  forth  a  hundred  modern  novels ;  but  you 
only  think  of  Fielding  reeling  home  from  the  Rose, 
and  refuse  to  consider  him  except  as  sitting  down 
with  his  head  in  a  wet  towel  to  scribble  immodest 
and  ruffianly  trash  for  the  players  !  A  consequence 
of  all  these  exercises  in  sentiment  and  imagination 
has  been  that,  while  many  have  been  ready  to  deal 
with  Fielding  as  the  text  for  a  sermon  or  the  subject 
of  an  essay,  as  the  point  of  a  moral  or  the  adornment 
of  a  tale,  few  have  cared  to  think  of  him  as  worthy 
to  dispute  the  palm  with  Cervantes  and  Sir 
Walter  as  the  heroic  man  of  letters. 


He    is    before  all  things  else  a  writer  to    be 
studied.     He  wrote  for  the  world  at  large  and 
to  the   end  that   he   might  be   read 
eternally.     His  matter,  his  manner.       Facts 
the    terms    of    his    philosophy,    the 
quality  of  his  ideals,  the  nature  of  his  achieve- 
ment, proclaim  him  universal.      Like  Scott,  like 
Cervantes,  like  Shakespeare,  he  claims  not  merely 
our  acquaintance   but  an    intimate    and    abiding 
familiarity.     He  has  no  special  public,  and  to  be 


232  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

only  on  nodding  terms  with  him  is  to  be  practi- 
cally dead  to  his  attraction  and  unworthy  his 
society.  He  worked  not  for  the  boys  and  girls 
of  an  age  but  for  the  men  and  women  of  all  time  ; 
and  both  as  artist  and  as  tliiuker  he  commands 
unending  attention  and  lifelong  friendship.  He 
is  a  great  inventor,  an  unrivalled  craftsman,  a 
perfect  master  of  his  material.  His  achievement 
is  the  result  of  a  life-time  of  varied  experience,  of 
searching  and  sustained  observation,  of  unweary- 
ing intellectual  endeavour.  The  sound  and  lusty 
types  he  created  have  an  intellectual  flavour 
peculiar  to  themselves.  His  novels  teem  with 
ripe  wisdom  and  generous  conclusions  and  bene- 
ficent examples.  As  Mr.  Stephen  tells  you,  '  he 
'  has     the     undeniable    merit    of     representing 

*  certain  aspects  of  contemporary  society  with 
'  a  force  and  accuracy  not  even  rivalled  by  any 

*  other  writer ' ;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  not  to  have 
studied  him  'is  to  be  without  a  knowledge  of 
'  the  most  important  documents  of  contemporary 
'  history.'  More  :  to  contrast  those  fair,  large 
parchments  in  which  he  has  stated  his  results  with 
those  tattered  and  filthy  papers  which  the  latter- 
day  literary  rag-picker  exists  but  to  grope  out  from 
kennel  and  sewer  is  to  know  the  difference  between 
the  artist  in  health  and  the  artist  possessed  by  an 
Vdiosyncrasy  as  by  a  devil. 


f 


FIELDING  233 

But  the  present  is  an  age  of  sentiment :  its 

ideals  and  ambitions  are  mainly  emotional;  what 

it    chiefly  loves    is    romance  or  the      _,     „^ 

„        .         .  •  le      The  Worst 

affectation  of  romance,  passion,  sell- 

conscious  solemnity,  and  a  certain 
straining  after  picturesque  effects.  In  Fielding's 
time  there  was  doubtless  a  good  deal  of  sentimen- 
talism,  for  his  generation  delighted  not  only  in 
Western  and  Trunnion  and  Mrs.  Slipslop  but  in 
Pamela  and  Clarissa  and  the  pathetic  Le  Fevre.  But 
for  all  that  it  was — at  all  events  in  so  far  as  it  was 
interesting  to  Fielding  and  in  so  far  as  Fielding 
has  pictured  it — a  generation  that  knew  nothing 
of  romance  but  was  keenly  interested  in  common 
sense,  and  took  a  vast  deal  of  honest  pleasure  in 
humour  and  wit  and  a  rather  truculent  and  full- 
blooded  type  of  satire.  It  is  plain  that  such  possi- 
bilities of  sympathy  and  understanding  as  exist  be- 
tween a  past  of  this  sort  and  such  a  present  as  our 
own  must  of  necessity  be  few  and  small.  Their 
importance,  too,  is  greatly  diminished  when  you 
reflect  on  the  nature  and  tendency  of  certain 
essential  elements  in  Fielding's  art  and  mind. 
The  most  vigorous  and  the  most  individual  of 
these  is  probably  his  irony ;  the  next  is  that 
abundant  vein  of  purely  intellectual  comedy  by 
whose  presence  his  work  is  exalted  to  a  place 
not  greatly  inferior  to  that  of  the  Misanthrope  and 
the  Ecok  des  Femmes.  These  rare  and  shining 
qualities  are  distinguishing  features  in  the  best  and 


234  VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 

soundest  part  of  Fielding.  Of  irony  he  is  pro- 
bably the  greatest  English  master ;  of  pure  comedy 
— the  intellectual  manipulation  and  transmuta- 
tion into  art  of  what  is  spiritually  ridiculous  in 
manners  and  society — ho  is  both  in  narrative  and 
in  dialogue  the  greatest  between  Shakespeare 
and  Mr.  George  Meredith.  And  with  both  our 
sympathy  is  imperfect.  We  have  learned  to  be 
sentimental  and  self-sufficient  with  Rousseau,  to 
be  romantic  and  chivalrous  with  Scott,  to  be 
emotional  with  Dickens,  to  take  ourselves  seri- 
ously with  Balzac  and  George  Eliot;  there  are 
touches  of  feeling  in  our  laughter,  even  though 
the  feeling  be  but  spite ;  we  have  acquired  a 
habit  of  politeness — a  tradition  of  universal  con- 
sideration and  respect ;  and  our  theory  of  satire 
is  rounded  by  the  pleasing  generalities  of  Mr. 
Du  Maurier  on  the  one  hand  and  the  malevolent 
respectability  of  Mr.  W.  S.  Gilbert  on  the  other. 
It  is  an  age  of  easy  writing  and  still  easier  reading : 
our  authors  produce  for  us  much  in  the  manner 
of  the  silkworm — only  their  term  of  life  is  longer  ; 
we  accept  their  results  in  something  of  the  spirit 
of  them  that  are  interested,  and  not  commercially, 
in  the  processes  of  silkworms.  And  M.  Guy  de 
Maupassant  can  write  but  hath  a  devil,  and  we 
take  him  not  because  of  his  writing  but  because 
of  his  devil ;  and  Blank  and  Dash  and  So-and-So 
and  the  rest  could  no  more  than  so  many  sheep 
develop   a   single   symptom    of  possession   among 


FIELDING  235 

them,  and  we  take  them  because  a  devil  and  they 
are  incompatibles.  And  art  is  short  and  time  is 
long ;  and  we  care  nothing  for  art  and  almost  as 
much  for  time ;  and  there  is  little  if  any  tc 
choose  between  Mudie's  latest  'catch'  and  last 
year's  'sensation'  at  Burlington  House.  And  to 
one  of  us  it  is  '  poor  Fielding ' ;  and  to  another 
Fielding  is  merely  gross,  immoral,  and  dull ; 
and  to  most  the  story  of  that  last  journey  to 
Lisbon  is  unknown,  and  Thackeray's  dream  of 
Fielding — a  novelist's  presentment  of  a  purely 
fictitious  character — is  the  Fielding  who  designed 
and  built  and  finished  for  eternity.  Which  is  to 
be  pitied  ?  The  artist  of  Amelia  and  Jonathan 
Wild,  the  creator  of  the  Westerns  and  Parson 
Adams  and  Colonel  Bath?  or  we  the  whipper- 
snappers  of  sentiment — the  critics  who  can  neither 
read  nor  understand? 


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